The Danish company Vestas has pre-assembled and supplied V112 3MW turbines to the Swedish Karehamn offshore wind farm, something the manufacturer describes as a “milestone”. Why? Because the sixteen turbines were assembled at a new facility at Esbjerg harbour, Denmark. Under this new system, the nacelles (gear housing) arrive at the port with the hub and drivetrain already mounted and tested. The turbine blades arrive at the harbour ready to be inserted into the hub while the tower comes in two sections and is assembled and put into an upright position prior to shipping. This is the first time this harbour assembly and testing has occurred at this scale.
Speaking about this innovation, Vestas Offshore senior vice president Uffe Vinther-Schou (pictured here) said he believed Vestas had taken offshore construction to the “next level” while cutting risk, costs and avoiding delays due to weather conditions.
“Preparing and testing turbines to get ready to go offshore, spending little time — this is plug and play in hours rather than days and we believe that is a major milestone,” he said.
Vestas decided to take this step after experiences constructing offshore windfarms in other places such as Thanet off the South Coast of England. The company wanted to reduce the costs and risks involved in assembling and testing offshore, where the weather conditions could cause delay, expense and risk. With this new form of assembling and testing at the harbour, there is no need for expensive specialist offshore construction ships.
He added that the new system was not dependent on size and the V164 8MW turbine could be installed in the same way:
“The V164 will certainly also benefit from our industrialisation of construction here. There’s nothing that prevents us from scaling this to the V164.”
But Vestas also said there were no plans at present to assemble the V164 at Esbjerg, although it’s very likely that this new form of construction and testing before conveyance to the offshore site will continue.
Vestas has a long history going back to 1898 when Vestas founded by H.S. Hansen, a blacksmith, in the small town of Lem, Denmark. He and his son, Peder Hansen, manufactured steel windows for industrial buildings. In 1945 – Peder Hansen established the company VEstjyskSTålteknik A/S, whose name was shortened to Vestas. The new company, which initially made household appliances, started to produce agricultural equipment, but in the 1970’s switched to wind turbines in the wake of the two oil crises that occurred in that decade. Its first wind turbine was assembled and commissioned in 1979.
