After more than 25 years of service, Dong Energy’s 5MW Vindeby Offshore Wind Farm in Denmark, known to be the world’s first offshore wind farm, is all set to retire.
Commissioned in 1991, the wind farm owned and operated by Dong is located along the south east coast of Denmark near Lolland.
Vindeby Offshore Wind Farm comprises 11 offshore wind turbines, each having a capacity of 0.45MW.
Leif Winther, who handles Dong’s offshore wind farms in Denmark, said that although small in size when compared to the modern day wind farms, Vindeby has played a vital role in the energy industry.
Winther added: “Vindeby Offshore Wind Farm is almost miniature-size in comparison with the giant projects which are now being realised in Northern Europe.
“But without the experience gained from the world's first offshore wind farm, we wouldn't be where we are today. It’s fair to say that Vindeby is the cradle of the offshore wind industry, and that this is where the industry was born.”
Decommissioning of Videby will begin this month with its components like blades, nacelle and tower to be dismantled and brought down one by one using a mobile crane.
Dong said that it will try to reuse the wind turbine components of Vindeby as spares for other wind turbines.
Through its lifetime, Vindeby has had generated 243GWh of clean power, meeting the energy needs of 2,200 households annually. This is in contrast to Dong’s 1200MW Hornsea Project One located offshore England in The North Sea which will serve a million households with green energy once commissioned.
Image: Dong’s Vindeby Offshore Wind Farm in offshore Denmark. Photo: courtesy of DONG Energy A/S.