Walney Wind Farm

Walney Wind Farm
Walney Wind Farm under construction in 2011
Country	England, United Kingdom
Coordinates	54°02′38″N 3°31′19″W
Status	Operational
Construction began	March 2010
Commission date	February 2012
Owner(s)	PGGM Greencoat UK Wind Ørsted
Wind farm
Type	Offshore
Rotor diameter	107 m (351 ft)
Site area	73 km2 (28 sq mi)
Power generation
Units operational	102 × 3.6 MW 47 × 7 MW 40 × 8.25 MW
Make and model	MHI Vestas V164-8.25MW (40) Siemens Gamesa SWT-3.6-107 (51) Siemens Gamesa SWT-3.6-120 (51) Siemens Gamesa SWT-7.0-154 (47)
Nameplate capacity	1,026.2 MW
Capacity factor	40 % 43 %
Annual net output	1,300 GWh
External links
Commons	Related media on Commons

Walney Wind Farm is an offshore wind farm 14 km west of Walney Island off the coast of Cumbria, in the Irish Sea, England. It has a capacity of 367 MW, which makes it the world's largest offshore wind farm. The wind farm was developed by Walney (UK) Offshore Windfarms Limited, a partnership between Dong Energy and Scottish and Southern Energy. The farm is immediately north west of the West Duddon wind farm and also to the west of Ormonde wind farm. The farm is in water depths ranging from 19m to 23m and will cover an area of approximately 73 km².

Description

Both phases have 51 turbines giving a nameplate capacity of 367 MW. It is the world's largest operational offshore wind farm. It is expected to generate about 1,300 GW·h/year of electricity, with a load factor of 43%

Planning

The key planning consents obtained were the following:

• Consent under section 36 of the Electricity Act 1989 to construct and operate a windfarm. This will also cover the offshore cables and other infrastructure.

• FEPA License under section 5 of the Food and Environment Protection Act 1985, concerning the protection of marine ecosystems.

• Consent under section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949 in order to make provision for the safety of navigation in relation to the export cables.

• Planning permission under section 90 of the Town and County Planning Act 1990, sought as part of the section 36 application, for the onshore elements of the works (“Deemed planning permission”).

• Extinguishment of public rights of navigation will be requested under the Energy Act 2004 for the areas of seabed directly covered by the offshore structures.

Construction

In 2004 Dong Energy was awarded a 50 year lease from The Crown Estate to develop a wind farm off Walney Island, as part of the second UK offshore wind farm tendering process known as "Round 2". The farm was constructed sequentially in two phases with overlapping installation activities to reduce the overall construction timeframe.

The project involved constructing the wind turbines and their foundations, building two offshore substations and installing two undersea power cables, one for each phase, and two short onshore cables to connect to two existing onshore Electrical substations for connection into the UK National Grid. Phase 1 connects to a substation at Heysham and Phase 2 connects to substation at Stanah, south of Fleetwood. Both undersea cables pass close by Barrow Wind Farm. All the construction work was expected to take less than 2 years, with both phases operational by the end of 2011. On 11 July 2011 Phase 1 became operational, comprising 51 turbines with an installed capacity of 183.6MW.

Walney 2 began sending power to the grid on 1 November 2011. In February 2012, DONG claimed to have installed the 51 turbines in Walney 2 in 5 months and 14 days, including monopiles and complete turbines; about 3.25 days per turbine. Walney 1 took 7 months. The improvement is due to commonality of projects and resources. The wind farm was officially opened on 9 February 2012 by the new energy secretary, Ed Davey, MP.

External links

• LORC Knowledge - Datasheet for Walney 1 Offshore Wind farm