Danish engineering firm Ramboll has secured a contract to design a 400MW offshore wind farm in China.
The contract, worth over €4m, requires Ramboll to design 100 steel turbine foundations, the 400 MW substation, concept for the transformers, breakers and cables.
The company will also develop the design basis for waves, currents and geotechnical conditions.
Ramboll noted that this will be the first time a single consultant will design such a large portion of an offshore wind project.
The company was the head designer of the turbine foundations for the initial phase of the project.
Ramboll Energy global market director and SPIC Binhai North project director Søren Juel Petersen said: "This project is exciting because the soft soil conditions in the Jiangsu province challenges us to design differently from what we are used to in the Northern European market.
"The technical challenges and the sheer scale of the project requires us to draw on skills from the entire business, and this is where we see the advantages of being a multi-disciplinary consultancy."
The offshore wind farm will be situated 22km off the coast. The foundations will be placed 60m below seabed, in order to support the turbines in water depths of 14m to 18m.
According to the World Wind Energy Association, the Chinese wind power market is the largest worldwide with a global market share of 52%.
China aims to install 10 gigawatts of offshore wind energy before the end of 2020, which amounts to 25 wind farms the size of the recent Anholt wind farm in Denmark.
Søren Juel Petersen added: "As the most populous country in the world, China has recognised the need to utilise more sustainable energy in order to meet the rise in demand of energy and to increase the air quality.
"The growing offshore wind industry presents an opportunity for increased exports, not only for Ramboll’s spearhead service – designing foundations for offshore wind turbines – but also for all the other disciplines that we provide when designing wind farms. We hope that this milestone project will pave the way for future projects in China."
Image: Ramboll to design offshore wind farm in China. Photo: Courtesy of Chris Laurens.