Vattenfall has said that the 288MW Sandbank offshore wind farm in the German North Sea has supplied its first power to the grid.
Located 90 km west of the island of Sylt, the wind farm is spread across in an area of 47km2.
Connection to the grid and commissioning of the offshore wind plant is expected to be completed in early 2017.
Construction of the wind farm containing 72 of Siemens SWT 4.0-130 wind turbines with 4MW each of power producing capacity was started in July, 2015. Turbine installation was completed recently.
The turbines are supported by monopile structures which are 70m in length and weigh about 900 tonnes each and reach depths between 24m and 33m.
The total budget for the wind farm is estimated to be about €1.2bn. Vattenfall owns 51% stake in the project, while the remaining 49% is owned by Stadwerke Munchen (SWM).
The wind farm will supply electricity to about 400,000 German households and help in avoiding more than 700,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year.
Vattenfall wind turbines package manager Hergen Stolle said: “We are very pleased The erection of wind turbines for Sandbank has started in late July and during the last weeks 21 wind turbines were successfully erected.
“Fully commissioned and in continuous operation the park will generate an annual amount of electricity which corresponds to the consumption of 400,000 German households.”
SWM Head of Offshore Wind Projects Christian Moldan said: “The according-to-plan- running erection phase of our project Sandbank is a good proof point for the fact, that the offshore business makes now profitable use of the experiences already made in previous projects.
“This includes Vattenfall and Stadtwerke München. We were able to transfer the know-how from the ‘sister project’ DaTysk to Sandbank and thus to carry on with our successful co-operation.”
Image: Construction of Sandbank offshore wind farm is complete and is ready for commissioning. Photo: Courtesy of Matt Banks/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.