Siemens Gamesa to supply turbines for Mermaid and Seastar offshore windfarms

The Mermaid and Seastar projects are amongst the last offshore wind projects to be built in the current designated offshore energy area in the Belgian EEZ. In a rapidly changing environment with a growing importance of offshore wind in the energy mix and decreasing cost levels, the Mermaid and Seastar projects adopted a combined approach for the wind turbine procurement in order to achieve the necessary economies of scale and synergies to lower the Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) for both wind farms.

Parties will continue their contract negotiations with the aim to reach an agreement on the terms and conditions of a Turbine Supply Contract and a long term Service and Maintenance contract before the summer of 2018.

“We are pleased to make this announcement as this will trigger a sequence of events that will eventually lead up to the construction of two offshore wind farms with a total capacity of ca. 500 MW. In order to reach project completion by 2020 the support mechanism announced by the government still has to be transposed into legislation, but we are confident the Belgian government will do its utmost to make this happen in the next weeks based on the principles agreed in October 2017.”

By Jake Frith