The consortium of EWE, E.ON and Vattenfall announced yesterday that it has successfully started up and adjusted for regular electricity generation the first three of a total of twelve wind turbines at the alpha ventus wind farm. The turbines, with a nominal capacity of five megawatts, are located 45 kilometres north of the island of Borkum.
“The wind turbines ‘AV 8’, ‘AV 9‘ and ‘AV 12’ are currently undergoing the so-called adjustment phase“, explains Wilfried Hube, the overall project leader of alpha ventus. “2As the name suggests, during this phase all the functions of the turbines are technically inspected and adjusted for the subsequent long-term operation. This is comparable with making technical adjustments to the engine of a new car.”
The adjustment phase is followed by a period of so-called trial operation. In this phase, the wind turbines are subjected to various test scenarios, such as operating under full load at different wind speeds. This is comparable with test-driving a new car. The test scenarios described last for several hundred hours. Only once these have been completed will a wind turbine be fully operational. Following ‘AV 8’, ‘AV 9‘ and ‘AV 12’, the other wind turbines that have already been constructed will consecutively be put into operation.
Construction of the wind turbines began in mid-April this year, after a first attempt had to be aborted in August 2008 due to poor weather conditions. Since April, work has proceeded at such a pace that construction of the wind farm is right on schedule. Particularly the pile-driving for the underwater foundations of the six Repower 5M wind turbines will shortly be able to be concluded in addition to the setting up and putting into operation of the six Areva Multibrid M5000.
With its successful construction of the offshore transformer station in September 2008, DOTI had already created the necessary prerequisites for the transmission of the generated wind power ashore. An underwater cable, installed last year by transpower gmbh (formerly E.ON Netz), connects the offshore transformer station to the German power grid.
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