Construction phase at the world’s second largest offshore wind farm comes to an end

THE FINAL array cable has been installed at RWE Innogy’s flagship 576MW Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm, off the North Wales coast, completing the construction phase of the project.

The project is now progressing towards its ultimate milestone, the final commissioning and operation of all remaining 41 turbines.

The completion of the construction phase marks the achievement of another major milestone for the project, and draws to a close all installation works at what will become the second largest operating offshore wind farm in the world.

The 161st cable(1) was installed by UK based Reef Subsea earlier this week, using its two specialist cable laying vessels, Polar Prince and Polar King.

RWE Innogy UK’s Gwynt y Môr Project Director, Toby Edmonds, said: “Completing the installation of all the components at Gwynt y Môr is a hugely significant milestone and brings to an end the construction phase of the project.

“It is a tremendous success for the project team and our attention now turns to commissioning the final turbines.”

It is almost three years since offshore construction of Gwynt y Môr began in January 2012 with the first placement of scour protection on the seabed. Since then, 160 foundations and turbines, four export cables, two offshore substations and now the 161 array cables have been installed.

Gwynt y Môr is a greater than £2billion offshore wind farm(2) which, once fully operational, will be capable of generating enough energy from home grown wind sources to power the equivalent of approximately 400,000 homes(3) - around a third of the total number of homes in all of Wales.(4)

Stockton-on-Tees based Reef Subsea installed the last four array cables in just three days to complete their scope of work at Gwynt y Môr.

Duncan MacPherson, Chief Executive Officer at Reef Subsea said of the project: “Drawing this phase of the project to a successful conclusion is a proud moment for the Reef Subsea team and we have been delighted to have been involved from the early days. Gwynt y Môr Wind Farm is one of the largest offshore wind farm constructions of its kind in the world and is also the largest project that Reef Subsea has been involved with since its formation in 2011 – it is a flagship project in many ways, and for us demonstrates the strength of our team and our capabilities.”

The project is a shared investment between RWE Innogy; Stadtwerke München GmbH; and Siemens, with the UK Green Investment Bank due to take up a further share once the wind farm is complete.

Completion of construction brings the delivery of a £19m local community fund, worth £768,000 per year (index linked), a significant step closer. This will become available once Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm is fully operational. The first full payment is expected in 2015, once the fund management and application processes are finalised. The community fund is in addition to a £690,000 Tourism Fund, which has supported five projects in North Wales throughout the construction of Gwynt y Môr.

For more information about Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm visit our website: www.rweinnogy.com/gwyntymor