Rough funding

The lending consortium comprises: Japan Bank for International Cooperation, The Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd, Mizuho Bank Ltd, Siemens Financial Services (Germany) and Société Générale Corporate & Investment Banking (France). The agreement was signed between the consortium and WMR JV Investco Ltd, a UK company jointly owned by Marubeni and the wholly state-owned UK Green Investment Bank plc (GIB).

Approximately £370m of project financing will secure funds for Investco to meet the capital requirement of the project. Earlier this year, Marubeni and GIB acquired 50% interest in the project from a subsidiary of DONG Energy (25% each). Development of the project was originally awarded to TOTAL Energie SA of France but they pulled out following their decision not to undertake UK offshore wind development. The lease was subsequently awarded to DONG Energy.

As the attention of the offshore wind industry turns to the prospect of development of vast UK Round 3 schemes it is worth noting that the remaining Round 2 windfarms (and with some their so called Round 2.5 extensions) are still progressing steadily in the shadow of their larger cousins.

Westermost Rough is around 8km off the Yorkshire coast, north of Hull and the windfarm will comprise 35 Siemens SWT-6.0-154 6MW turbines with rotor diameters of 154m, producing a total of 210MW. A popular means of expressing output of offshore windfarms is the number of homes provided with power and with Westermost Rough this figure is put at 150,000. Water depths in the area are reported as between 10m and 25m.

Westermost Rough is witnessing the involvement of two of the industry’s new-generation installation vessels. GeoSea recently completed installation of all 35 monopile foundations and transition pieces (TPs) using their installation vessel Innovation. The foundations weighed in at between 500t and 810t each with a diameter of 6.5m: the TPs weighing around 367t. The foundations and TPs were loaded out from Aalborg in Denmark. Meanwhile A2SEA (part of DONG Energy) have committed their installation vessel Sea Challenger to the project and recently the first turbine was installed, loaded out from Esbjerg in Denmark. DONG Energy have worked closely with Blue Water Shipping who operate terminal services in Esbjerg, the latter recently extending their facilities at the port on the back of positive developments in the offshore industry in general.

In 2011 Ramboll won the contract for detailed design of the offshore substation with STX France responsible for construction of the topsides, substructure and piles. Ramboll also designed the turbine foundations which were manufactured by Bladt Industries A/S.

By Peter Barker