The first large offshore wind farm in the world, consisting of 80 Vestas V80-2 MW WTs each of 5027 m2 swept area, was completed in 2002 in 6-14 m of water in the North Sea at Horns Rev, 14-20 km off the West Jutland coast of Denmark. The project was managed by the West Danish utility Elsam, now DONG Energy, and the wind farm is connected via an offshore substation using 30 kV AC collector cables and to shore from the substation via a 150 kV AC export cable. Maintenance of the wind farm was conceived on the basis of using helicopters access to individual WT nacelles via specially designed access platforms built onto the nacelles to accommodate drops and lifts from the Eurocopter EC135.

Chapter Contents:

• 6.1 Early European offshore wind farm experience
• 6.1.1 Horns Rev I wind farm, Denmark
• 6.1.2 Round 1 wind farms, the United Kingdom
• 6.1.3 Egmond aan Zee, Netherlands
• 6.2 Experience gained
• 6.2.1 General
• 6.2.2 Environment
• 6.2.3 Access
• 6.2.4 Offshore LV, MV and HV networks
• 6.2.4.1 Substation
• 6.2.4.2 Collector cables
• 6.2.4.3 Export cable connection
• 6.2.5 Other Round 1 wind farms, the United Kingdom
• 6.2.6 Commissioning
• 6.2.7 Planning offshore operations
• 6.3 Summary
• 6.4 References

Inspec keywords: power system reliability; wind turbines; maintenance engineering; offshore installations; power cables

Other keywords: AC export cable; reliability; wind farm maintenance; offshore availability; voltage 150 kV; wind turbine; offshore wind farm; WT nacelles; helicopters; AC collector cables; Eurocopter EC135; offshore substation; voltage 30 kV

Subjects: Wind power plants; Reliability; Power cables