Robin Rigg Wind Farm is Scotland's first

offshore wind farm Offshore wind power or offshore wind energy is the generation of electricity through wind farms in bodies of water, usually at sea. There are higher wind speeds offshore than on land, so offshore farms generate more electricity per amount of ca ...

. It was constructed by

E.ON E.ON SE is a European multinational electric utility company based in Essen, Germany. It operates as one of the world's largest investor-owned electric utility service providers. The name originates from the Latin word '' aeon'', derived from ...

at Robin Rigg, a sandbank in the

Solway Firth The Solway Firth is an inlet on the west coast of Great Britain, forming part of the border between England and Scotland. The firth (a Scottish term for an inlet of the sea) divides Cumbria (including the Solway Plain) from Dumfries and Gallow ...

midway between the

Galloway Galloway ( ; ; ) is a region in southwestern Scotland comprising the counties of Scotland, historic counties of Wigtownshire and Kirkcudbrightshire. It is administered as part of the council areas of Scotland, council area of Dumfries and Gallow ...

and

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

n coasts. It first generated power for test purposes on 9 September 2009, and was completed on 20 April 2010.

Description

60 Vestas V90-3MW

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that wind power, converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. , hundreds of thousands of list of most powerful wind turbines, large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, were generating over ...

s were installed, with an offshore

electrical substation A substation is a part of an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perform any of several other important functions. Between the generating station an ...

. Prysmian provided two 132 kV export cables each 12.5 km long to connect the wind farm to the on-shore substation. Two units were subsequently decommissioned in 2015 due to failures during installation. The 174 MW development provides enough electricity for around 117,000 households. The wind farm employs around 40 people, most of whom are local to the area. It is operated from the Port of

Workington Workington is a coastal town and civil parish in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. The town is at the mouth of the River Derwent on the west coast, south-west of Carlisle and north-east of Whitehaven. At the 2021 census the ...

. Local suppliers are used whenever possible, providing services including vessel management, fabrication,

environmental monitoring Environmental monitoring is the processes and activities that are done to characterize and describe the state of the environment. It is used in the preparation of environmental impact assessments, and in many circumstances in which human activit ...

, catering, industrial cleaning, inspection services and printing. In the first year of commercial operation the wind farm was available to operate for over 98% of the time. Its levelised cost has been estimated at £135/MWh. In March 2011 Robin Rigg became the first offshore wind farm to enter the OFTO regime with the two offshore and onshore export cables and the onshore 132kV substation being bought by Transmission Capital and Amber Infrastructure.

Legal case

The wind farm was the subject of a legal case decided by the

UK Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (initialism: UKSC) is the final court of appeal for all civil cases in the United Kingdom and all criminal cases originating in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as some limited criminal cases ...

in 2017, which arose because certain of the foundation structures failed shortly after completion of the project. These had been designed and installed by Danish company MT Højgaard A/S under a contract awarded by

. The case was legally significant because a requirement that the structures "be designed with a lifetime of 20 years" was contained within a Technical Requirements document which formed part of the contract, but on appeal Jackson LJ considered this requirement "too slender a thread" upon which to hang MT Hojgaard's liability in the light of other, inconsistent, parts of the specification, and because E.ON had specified a requirement that they comply with offshore standard J101, an international standard for the design of offshore wind turbine structures produced by the technical standards company DNV. The J101 standard contained a calculation error; although MT Hojgaard aimed to comply with the standard as-published, their design was not sufficiently robust to meet the 20-year lifetime requirement and so the Supreme Court found they had breached the contract.Albou, E.
On Shaky Ground: Contractual Law & the Robin Rigg Case
''Lawyer Monthly'', published 16 October 2017, accessed 25 November 2022

References

{{Authority control Buildings and structures in Dumfries and Galloway Wind farms in Scotland Offshore wind farms in the Irish Sea E.ON Round 1 offshore wind farms Solway Firth 2010 establishments in Scotland Energy infrastructure completed in 2010

Description

Legal case

See also

References