8.2 Consulting AG received the contract for manufacturing surveillance of the world's largest offshore wind farm

“8.2 Consulting AG has provided Quality and Surveillance services to Vattenfall for the Hollandse Kust Zuid 1-4 Project with respect to Nacelle production. During times when travel has been difficult and onsite presence has been challenging due to the ever evolving COVID-19 situation, 8.2 have provided eyes and ears for Vattenfall and helped ensure critical milestones are delivered and an extremely high level of quality is met. 8.2 have been a brilliant partner to work with on the HKZ project thus far, and I look forward to the continued collaboration for the rest of the project.” states Ben Flett, BU Offshore at Vattenfall.

The Dutch energy market has so far shown a strong focus on fossil fuels. With a share of almost 60% in energy production, natural gas leads by a clear margin ahead of oil and coal. But the energy transition, away from gas and towards renewable energies, has already been implemented. By 2023, 16% of the energy demand in the Netherlands has to be covered by renewable sources, with the massive expansion of wind energy as a key contributor. According to government plans, around 40% of today's energy consumption could be achieved by wind turbines by 2030.

The construction of the offshore wind farm "Hollandse Kust Zuid" marks a milestone on the way to a greener energy mix.

Located between 18-36km from the Dutch coast, not far from The Hague and Zandvoort, the world's largest offshore wind farm with an installed capacity of around 1.5 GW is being built over the next two years. In this wind farm, a total of 140 wind turbines of the newly developed type SG 11.0-200 DD from the manufacturer Siemens Gamesa with a capacity of 11 MW each will be erected by 2023.

The pre-series production of the first 5 turbines has been going on for almost a year at the production site in Brande, Denmark, in order to optimize production processes and prepare the serial production. This started a few days ago at the new location in Cuxhaven. Due to the complexity and the new turbine technology, future operator Vattenfall has decided for extensive production supervision. Due to the great wealth of experience in the field of offshore technology and the involvement in the previous Kriegers Flak project, 8.2 Consulting AG has been awarded, to monitor continuously the serial production of hubs, generators and the entire back-ends with a team of inspectors on site.

The complete production chain is examined – from the delivery of the single components through the mechanical inspection after final assembly to the visual final inspection of each wind turbine.

Due to the pre-series status, no defined processes and proper documentation for the inspection was available which caused a challenging and motivating part for the involved expert pool. Several changes and improvements could be integrated directly into the production processes and weak points that later became apparent as potential failures were discovered early on.

Production of the pre-series was largely completed at the end of July 2021, and serial production of the remaining 135 wind turbines for the wind farm, which are scheduled to be installed in one year, is now starting. Due to the high number of items, however, this will take place at the new production site in Cuxhaven - much to the delight of the 8.2 inspectors, who had to deal organizationally with quarantine requirements, weekend work and extended testing obligations due to the Danish Corona policies during work in Brande.

The thorough preparatory work and the knowledge gained from the pre-series production are now paying off, and construction of the remaining 135 wind turbines can begin quickly. But this is also necessary, because the project schedule is ambitious: the commissioning of the first turbines is planned for spring 2022, by summer 2023 all 140 SG 11.0-200 DDs should be on the grid.