Last weekend, Danish power company, DONG Energy, held two exhibitions at the Greensward Cafe, in Marine Parade West.
Namely, the company is planning to test two wind turbine prototypes at the Gunfleet Sands wind farm.
This is the first time the 6MW wind turbines from Siemens will have been tested offshore.
The new turbines will be installed by November this year with construction starting this month, and will be connected through a dedicated export cable. DONG Energy will be looking to verify turbine performance, reliability and functionality. The Gunfleet Sands 3 demonstration project is located 8.5 km south east of Clacton on Sea.
A prototype of the 6 MW turbine is also being tested at an onshore test centre at Hovsore, Denmark.
Morten Buchgreitz, deputy CEO of DONG Energy Wind Power said:
“The Gunfleet Sands 3 demonstration project marks an important step in industry’s efforts to reduce the cost of energy. The Round 3 projects in the UK are in deeper waters and will have a much bigger capacity than existing wind farms so the technology will increase in capacity as well. This demonstration project aligns with DONG Energy’s ambitions to steer development in the wind industry towards industrialisation to make offshore wind power even more competitive.”
“We are pleased to be the first company testing this new Siemens machine. DONG Energy is focused on making offshore wind more competitive and proving that these bigger turbines work will help us achieve that goal.”
[mappress]
Offshore WIND staff, June 25, 2012; Image: siemens