Wind Energy

Wind energy in Netherlands. Nordex awarded 72.5-MW wind farm

The wind power project has been planned by four companies, all of which have opted in favour of the Nordex N100/2500. The customers are the two Dutch utilities DELTA NV and Eneco NV as well as the private operators Winvast BV and Scheldewind BV.

With an installed capacity of 72.5 MW, the wind power project entails a total of 29 wind turbines. Part of the wind power project involves repowering, i.e. dismantling and modernising, 26 older 500 kW wind turbines which DELTA has been operating in the Reimerswaal community since 1996.

By enlarging the capacity by around 60 MW, the operators want to make a key contribution to “greener” electricity supplies with as little as possible interference with the landscape. All told, the “Kreekraksluis” wind farm is to achieve an annual yield of around 210 GWh, sufficient to provide up to 55,000 Dutch homes with clean electricity.

The wind farm is being installed along the “Schelde-Rijnverbinding” canal south of Bergen op Zoom. Nordex will also build up a permanent service station at the site to manage the turbines. The purchase contracts also include premium service package for a period of 15 years. As well as this, an extension of the project for an additional three turbines of the same model is planned. Once the old wind turbines have been dismantled, the new Nordex systems are to be installed from April 2013.

“This project is a good example of how wind power capacity can be raised without any appreciable increase in the number of wind turbines. This is a guiding model for other developed European markets to follow and offers great potential for the future,” explains Lars Bondo Krogsgaard, Chief Customer Officer at Nordex SE. Three of the four orders are received already in December 2011. The remaining six wind turbines are booked as order intake in March.

By José Santamarta, www.nordex-online.com