Barrow Offshore Wind Farm

Wind farm layout

The Barrow Offshore Wind Farm is a 30 turbine 90MW capacity offshore wind farm in the East Irish Sea approximately seven kilometres (four nautical miles) southwest of Walney Island, near Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England.

Construction of the wind farm took place between 2005 and 2006. The farm is operated by Barrow Offshore Wind Limited, owned by Ørsted A/S.

Planning and design

Barrow wind farm was a UK Round 1 wind farm development originally developed by Warwick Energy Limited.^[1] A planning application was submitted in 2001,^[2] and planning consent given in March 2003;^[3] the project was sold to Centrica (25%, c.£22.5million), Ørsted A/S (then named DONG Energy) (37.5%), and Statkraft (37.5%) in Sep. 2003.^[4][5] The estimated cost of developing the project was £100 million, of which £10million was provided by a UK government grant.^[5][6] In 2004 Centrica and Ørsted bought the Statkraft stake, forming a 50:50 joint venture in the development.^[7]

The initial Warwick Energy proposal was for a 30 turbine wind farm 7 km southwest of Walney Island (Cumbria), with a generating capacity of up to 108 MW; electrical power supply to the mainland was to be via a ~25 km long 132 kV cable making groundfall near Heysham, with connection to the mainland electrical grid at an extension to an existing electricity substation south of Heysham nuclear power station.^[8] Turbines were expected to have ~50m radius blades, with a 75m hub height, and be in water at a depth of ~20 m, with a ~32.5 m sub-sea bed monopile foundation; the turbines were to be spaced approximately 500 m apart in four rows aligned to face the prevailing southwesterly winds, with a row spacing of ~750 m.^[9]

Construction

In July 2004 Kellogg Brown & Root Ltd and Vestas-Celtic Wind Technology Ltd were awarded the contract to install and commission the wind farm, and to operate the wind farm for five years.^[10] A 30-turbine wind farm with a capacity of 90MW was constructed by the consortium between July 2005 and May 2006. The main construction base was at Harland and Wolff's shipyard in Belfast.^[11] In exceptions where pile driving of monopile foundations failed, drilling was used to form the monopile foundations.^[11][12]

IEC 1A class Vestas V90-3.0 MW wind turbines were used, mounted on a 75 m tower connected to 4.75 m (15 ft 7 in) monopiles supplied by a Sif/Smulders joint venture.^[13] Turbine to offshore substation electric connection were at 33 kV, with the voltage stepped up to 132 kV at an offshore substation supplied by Areva T&D (transformer), Sif/Smulders (superstructure and monopile) and designed by KBR and Mott MacDonald. Cables were supplied by Prysmian (33 kV) and Nexans (132 kV).^[14]

Construction of the wind farm was completed in June 2006 with the first power generated in March 2006.^[15] The operator is Barrow Offshore Wind Limited, owned by Centrica and Ørsted.^[1]

Operation

Since 2008 (to 2012) the farm operated at between 30 and 40% capacity factor, generating between 240 and 320 GWh of electrical energy per year.^[16] Its levelised cost has been estimated at £87/MWh.^[17]

In 2011 regulatory changes required Ørsted/Centrica to divest the electrical transmission assets of the wind farm, which were sold to TC Barrow OFTO Ltd. for £34 million.^[18]

In 2014 Ørsted acquired Centrica's 50% holding in the wind farm.^[19]

See also

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