Kentish Flats connects to grid
During August, Swedish renewable energy company Vattenfall announced that it has produced the first power to the National Grid from the Kentish Flats Extension (KFE) offshore wind farm in the UK North Sea.
As Melanie Rogers, Communications Officer at Vattenfall UK, explained, two of the site’s fifteen turbines are now generating electricity and are connected to the UKPN Network through an on and offshore high voltage cable network – with the remaining 13 to follow shortly after.
“Prior to this, turbines were erected offshore whilst the onshore Herne Bay UKPN substation was extended to accommodate the new wind farm development. This substation is our connection to the UKPN network – and from here the electricity is exported to the National Grid,” she added.
For Rogers, the grid connection is particularly important for Vattenfall because the KFE project is the company’s first offshore extension, and the first offshore project it has taken ‘completely through the consent process up to full power.’
“We already had the main infrastructure in place to manage more turbines along this part of the Kent so it was a sensible project for us,” she said.
Rogers also confirmed that the Construction phase of the Kentish Flats Extension is now ‘more or less complete,’ with each turbine having been tested for a period of 240 hours.
“Once commissioned, the next stage will be to hand over our new wind farm to the Operations and Maintenance Department, who will look after the asset for the duration of its lifetime,” she added.
By Andrew Williams
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