The windy winter blows fair for London Array

In the Thames Estuary, London Array, the world’s largest offshore windfarm has now reported that their 175 3.6MW Siemens turbines produced 1.5TWh of clean power in the six months between October 2013 and the end of March 2014, equivalent to the annual consumption of around 325,000 British households. The performance was helped by December and January’s unusually windy weather which, combined with high availability, meant the turbines were able to capitalise on the near-perfect conditions to achieve some very high load factors. On 6 January alone, some 15GWh was produced.

London Array can perhaps be described as the jewel in the crown of the UK’s ambitious offshore wind plans, which is to take nothing away from the numerous other Round 1 and Round 2 projects snapping on the heels of London Array when compared by size. The progress with actual commissioned projects together with those now well into the planning or installation phases indicates that the industry as a whole (including the Europe-wide supply chain) is developing into a position of being able to deliver cost reductions everyone from government to end-users in the form of domestic customers are so anxious to see.

The O&M base is at Ramsgate, around an hour away by sea and while this small but active harbour may not have been able to accommodate the large installation vessels during the construction phase, can now look forward to a steady income-stream from the long term O&M phase for the windfarm’s life. London Array is jointly owned by DONG Energy (50%), E.ON (30%) and Masdar (20%). The project had a somewhat drawn-out start in life before construction actually got underway, but once in full swing the completed windfarm was delivered both before time and under budget. The owners will be rightly satisfied now there is also an income to show.

London Array’s general manager, Mike O’Hare said: “This excellent performance is a testament to the quality of installed components, the well managed construction project, the smooth handover to operations, the support we’ve had from local stakeholders and our service providers who work to keep the turbines turning.

“As well as excellent production figures, I am delighted the safety culture we developed during construction has been maintained and that there were no major injuries to our people working on site.

“Our priority now is to build upon this promising start to safely and efficiently complete our routine maintenance and balance of construction work over summer, while further improving reliability and repair times.”

By Peter Barker