RWE Innogy begins turbine installation at Nordsee Ost offshore wind farm

RWE Innogy has begun installing 48 turbines at the 295MW Nordsee Ost offshore wind farm in the German North Sea.

The installation vessel ‘Victoria Mathias’ has been loaded with four 240t tubular steel towers, together with the associated hubs and nacelles, for transporting them for installation at sea shortly.

The sister vessel Friedrich Ernestine is scheduled to deploy the 144 rotor blades, each of which is 60m long and weighs some 60 tonnes.

RWE Innogy Bremerhaven Port logistics manager Marcus Dengler said that the first major components loading went very smoothly.
"The team worked together hand-in-hand and load all of the over 30 meters high tower sections, together with the associated hubs and nacelles, aboard the ship using the vessel’s own crane," Dengler added.

"Last night our installation vessel left the base port and made its way to the construction site 35 kilometres to the north of the island of Heligoland, where installation will commence immediately."

Currently, the internal cabling work is underway for the wind farm while the installation of the transformer substation expected to begin at sea.

RWE Innogy Nordsee Ost Wind Farm Project Director Marcel Sunier said, "The internal cabling work for the farm is progressing according to plan; in summer we plan to install the transformer substation at sea and then connect all of the wind turbines to the grid by spring 2015."

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Image: Large-scale components storage at base port. Photo: courtesy of RWE Innogy.