Iberdrola connects first offshore wind turbines to grid at West of Duddon Sands wind farm

Via its British subsidiary ScottishPower Renewables, IBERDROLA and Danish firm Dong have connected the first wind turbines at the  West Of Duddon Sands (WODS) offshore wind farm in the UK to the British national grid.

These are the first four offshore turbines to be connected to the grid by IBERDROLA and the first offshore turbines commissioned by a Spanish company to start producing electricity, which is yet another demonstration of the company’s commitment to renewable energies.

West Of Duddon Sands is located about 20 kilometres from Barrow-in-Furness, on the North-West coast of England. It has been under construction for two years now.  The company has installed 42 of the 108 wind turbines that make up this project and is currently in the process of commissioning and connecting all of these turbines.

Once commissioning is complete (which will require a total investment amounting to  £1.6 billion), the facility will have a capacity of 389 megawatts (MW) and produce enough electricity to meet the needs of some 300,000 British homes.

So far, some 200 kilometres of cables have been installed under the sea and the 108 foundations have been finished.  The site covers a surface area of about 67 km2 and the turbines supplied by German firm Siemens have a unit capacity of 3.6 MW.

The energy produced by the wind turbines is collected in an offshore substation specially designed to withstand the harsh weather conditions in the area.  The voltage is raised in the substation and then two undersea cables export the electricity to the Heysham substation on land, which is the point of connection to the UK grid.

The WODS wind farm has been designed with the latest advanced technology, which has allowed to bring down costs.  The new terminal at the port of Belfast that was built specifically for the purpose of installing offshore wind farms is used to store and pre-assemble all the parts and components.  Some 300 people work there, ranging from welders to engineers and crane operators.

This major offshore wind power complex is being built using state-of-the-art installation ships.  They are the most modern ships available on the market and were built expressly for the installation of offshore wind farms.

The ships are used on a joint basis: Pacific Orca (the largest installation ship in the world, measuring 161 metres long, 49 wide and 10.4 deep) is used to transport the foundations; and Sea Installer is used to take the wind turbines and blades out to the designated wind farm location.

The IBERDROLA Group has pinpointed offshore wind power as one of the core areas for its future growth and aims to spearhead the development of this technology, while proceeding with the care that is required with this kind of investments.  The company has an Offshore Business Division (with offices in Glasgow, London, Berlin, Madrid and Paris) in charge of gradually commissioning its project portfolio, which already amounts to a capacity of some 8,000 MW in the UK, Germany and France.