Westermost Rough Wind Farm is an offshore
wind farm
A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...
north east of
Withernsea
Withernsea is a seaside resort town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Holderness, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Its white inland lighthouse, rising around above Hull Road, now houses a museum to 1950s actress Kay Kendall, wh ...
off the
Holderness
Holderness is an area of the East Riding of Yorkshire, on the north-east coast of England. An area of rich agricultural land, Holderness was marshland until it was drained in the Middle Ages. Topographically, Holderness has more in common wit ...
coast, in the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. A sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Se ...
,
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. The farm covers an area of approximately with a generation capacity of approximately 210 MW. It became operational in May 2015.
History
The Westermost Wind farm site was originally awarded to
Total
Total may refer to:
Mathematics
* Total, the summation of a set of numbers
* Total order, a partial order without incomparable pairs
* Total relation, which may also mean
** connected relation (a binary relation in which any two elements are comp ...
in 2003 during the initial
Round 2 wind farm tendering process; Total later withdrew and the concession was returned to the
Crown Estate
The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's priva ...
in 2006.
In 2007
DONG Energy
Dong or DONG may refer to:
Places
* Dong Lake, or East Lake, a lake in China
* Dong, Arunachal Pradesh, a village in India
* Dong (administrative division) (동 or 洞), a neighborhood division in Korea
Person names
Surnames
* Dǒng (surna ...
was awarded a lease from
The Crown Estate
The Crown Estate is a collection of lands and holdings in the United Kingdom belonging to the British monarch as a corporation sole, making it "the sovereign's public estate", which is neither government property nor part of the monarch's priva ...
to develop a wind farm at Westermost Rough.
The company ''Westermost Rough Ltd'' was established 2007;
[Westernmost Rough Limited, incorporated 1 May 2007, company number 0623914. Source: ]Companies House
Companies House is the executive agency of the British Government that maintains the Company register, register of companies, employs the company registrars and is responsible for Incorporation (business), incorporating all forms of Company, co ...
database a subsidiary of DONG Energy.
A planning application was submitted in November 2009,
and consent was given by the
Department of Energy and Climate Change
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) was a Departments of the Government of the United Kingdom, department of the government of the United Kingdom created on 3 October 2008, by Prime Minister Gordon Brown to take over some of the ...
in 2011 for a development of up to 80 turbines of up to 245 MW power with a limit of turbine tip height, and rotor diameter, as well as associated onshore and offshore substations, cabling and other infrastructure.
Initial expectations were for an earliest in service date of 2014,
in January 2013 construction of the wind farm was confirmed, with construction scheduled to start in 2014 with the farm operational by 2015.
DONG Energy sold a 50% stake in the wind farm in equal parts to the
Green Investment Bank and to
Marubeni Corporation
(, OSE: 8002, NSE: 8002) is a ''sōgō shōsha'' (general trading company) headquartered in Otemachi, Chiyoda, Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan. It is one of the largest ''sogo shosha'' and has leading market shares in cereal and paper pulp trading as well ...
for a total of £240 million; as part of the sale the two buyers committed to investing £500 million in the construction of the wind farm;
the two companies, through the joint company ''WMR JV Investco Limited'' secured £370 million from lenders in August 2014 to fund the capital cost of the project.
Design, manufacture and construction
The wind farm is located off the
Holderness
Holderness is an area of the East Riding of Yorkshire, on the north-east coast of England. An area of rich agricultural land, Holderness was marshland until it was drained in the Middle Ages. Topographically, Holderness has more in common wit ...
coast, roughly northeast of
Withernsea
Withernsea is a seaside resort town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Holderness, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Its white inland lighthouse, rising around above Hull Road, now houses a museum to 1950s actress Kay Kendall, wh ...
.
[Boundaries of the wind farm are at grid locations , , , , and . ( London Gazette, 18 June 2012)] The proposed design is for 35 to 80 turbines of between 3 and 7 MW power output, in an area of , with a total installed capacity of up to 245 MW.
The offshore substation design was subcontracted to
Ramboll
Rambøll Group A/S, also known as "Ramboll", is a Danish multinational architecture, engineering, and consulting company. In the past 25 years, the company has expanded from being a business mainly focused on the Nordic region, to having offices ...
,
with medium voltage turbine to offshore transformer submarine cables supplied by
Nexans
Nexans S.A. is a global company in the cable and optical fibre industry headquartered in Paris, France.
The group is active in four main business areas: buildings and territories (construction, local infrastructure, smart cities / grids, e-mobi ...
.
High voltage 155 kV submarine export cables and 155/275 kV underground cables were contracted to be supplied from
LS Cable & System
LS Cable & System (Korean: LS전선, 엘에스전선) is a South Korea-based industrial corporation with global operations and one of the biggest cable manufacturers worldwide. Its products comprise power and telecommunication cables and system ...
of Korea.
The cable landing point is to be near
Tunstall, East Riding of Yorkshire, with a
national grid connection made via the buried cables to a new substation at
Salt End
Salt End or Saltend is a Hamlet (place), hamlet in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, in an area known as Holderness. It is situated on the north bank of the Humber Estuary just outside the Kingston upon Hull, Hull eastern boundary on the A ...
.
The project was the first commercial use of gearless 6 MW
Siemens Wind turbines;
[ 35 turbines were to be installed, giving a capacity of 210 MW.]Varde
Varde is a Danish city in southwestern Jutland and is the primary city in the municipality of Varde, in Region of Southern Denmark. In 2015 municipality changed its motto to "We in nature" to emphasize its rural atmosphere. The town has an old ma ...
, Denmark based Titan Wind Energy was contracted to supply towers, with tower foundations supplied by Bladt Industries
Bladt Industries A/S is an international steel contractor specialising in large-scale and highly complex steel structures. It operate within three key areas of business providing steel solutions for the wind and renewable energy sector, for the o ...
of Aalborg
Aalborg or Ålborg ( , , ) is Denmark's List of cities and towns in Denmark, fourth largest urban settlement (behind Copenhagen, Aarhus, and Odense) with a population of 119,862 (1 July 2022) in the town proper and an Urban area, urban populati ...
, Denmark.Doppler radar
A Doppler radar is a specialized radar that uses the Doppler effect to produce velocity data about objects at a distance. It does this by bouncing a microwave signal off a desired target and analyzing how the object's motion has altered the fre ...
system, (originally developed by the US National Wind Institute
The National Wind Institute (NWI) at Texas Tech University (TTU) was established in December 2012, and is intended to serve as Texas Tech University's intellectual hub for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research, commercialization and edu ...
,Carbon Trust
The Carbon Trust is a consultancy established in March 2001, with offices across the world. Its aim is to accelerate the pace of private and public sectors decarbonisation and increase energy efficiency in organisations worldwide.
The Carbon ...
organisation.GeoSea
In Ancient Greece, a deme or (, plural: ''demoi'', δήμοι) was a suburb or a subdivision of Athens and other city-states. Demes as simple subdivisions of land in the countryside existed in the 6th century BC and earlier, but did not acquire ...
was awarded the contract to install foundation piles in April 2013.Withernsea
Withernsea is a seaside resort town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Holderness, East Riding of Yorkshire, England. Its white inland lighthouse, rising around above Hull Road, now houses a museum to 1950s actress Kay Kendall, wh ...
and the nearby area reported noise and vibration disturbance during the night time, attributed to piling at the wind farm site; by April 2014 an investigation by the Marine Management Organisation
The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) is an executive non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom established under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, with responsibility for English waters. The MMO exists to make a significant cont ...
had found evidence of noise, but the results were not conclusive enough for it to act on.
Operations
The wind farm was commissioned and became operational in May 2015.levelised cost
The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generator over its lifetime. It is used for investment planning and to compare different methods of electricity generation on a ...
has been estimated at £121/MWh.
In May 2015, Ofgem
The Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) is the government regulator for the electricity and downstream natural gas markets in Great Britain. It was formed by the merger of the Office of Electricity Regulation (OFFER) and Office of G ...
awarded preferred bidder status to own and operate the electrical transmission assets of the wind farm to Transmission Capital Partners;
Notes
References
Sources
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External links
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{{Yorkshire Powerstations
Wind farms in England
Offshore wind farms in the North Sea
Round 2 offshore wind farms
Holderness
2015 establishments in England
Energy infrastructure completed in 2015