In a significant development for renewable energy, Ørsted and Jan De Nul Group have jointly announced the successful installation of the first foundation for the Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm. The project, boasting a massive 913 MW capacity, is poised to become the largest wind farm in German waters.
The installation process was executed by Jan De Nul Group’s heavy-lift vessel, Les Alizés, which completed the placement of the initial monopile foundation at a location 53 km off the island of Borkum. These foundations, reaching lengths of up to 100 m and weighing a substantial 1500 tons, are manufactured by Steelwind in Nordenham and Bladt Industries A/S’ Lindø plant in Denmark. The forthcoming phase will witness the deployment of a new generation of turbines, specifically the SG 11.0-200 DD offshore wind turbine, onto these foundations.
The installation initiative commenced promptly following the completion of the last monopile foundation for the Gode Wind 3 project (253 MW). Les Alizés, responsible for placing a total of 24 monopiles for the future turbines, including one for the offshore substation topside, demonstrated its capability to handle increasingly larger monopile foundations for offshore wind farms.
Peter De Pooter, Manager Offshore Renewables at Jan De Nul Group, expressed enthusiasm about continuing collaboration with Ørsted on Germany’s largest offshore wind farm to date.
Jörg Kubitza, Managing Director of Ørsted in Germany, emphasized the groundbreaking nature of the Borkum Riffgrund 3 project. It sets new standards in terms of both capacity and business model, being the first offshore wind farm in Germany awarded with a bid of €0/MWh in the offshore wind tenders. This innovative approach enables direct support for corporate customers in their decarbonization efforts, highlighting the scale achievable through renewable energies like offshore wind.
One distinctive feature of Borkum Riffgrund 3 is that it will be constructed without an offshore substation (OSS). The project introduces a new connection concept, in collaboration with transmission system operator TenneT, allowing direct connections of the wind turbines via 66 kV export cables to the DolWin5 offshore converter platform from TenneT.
Together with the Gode Wind 3 project, Borkum Riffgrund 3 is expected to contribute to more than 1.1 GW of total capacity, almost doubling Ørsted’s installed offshore wind power capacity in Germany to approximately 2.5 GW. Both wind farms are scheduled for commissioning in 2024 and 2025, respectively.