The Barrow Offshore Wind Farm is a 30 turbine 90MW capacity offshore

wind farm A wind farm or wind park, also called a wind power station or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turb ...

in the East Irish Sea approximately south west of

Walney Island Walney Island, also known as the Isle of Walney, is an island off the west coast of England, at the western end of Morecambe Bay in the Irish Sea. It is part of Barrow-in-Furness, separated from the mainland by Walney Channel, which is spanned b ...

, near

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of B ...

, 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. Barrow (4C Offshore) ''Developers/Owners/Operators'' A planning application was submitted in 2001, and planning consent given in March 2003; 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. The estimated cost of developing the project was £100million, of which £10million was provided by a UK government grant. In 2004 Centrica and Ørsted bought the Statkraft stake, forming a 50:50 joint venture in the development. The initial Warwick Energy proposal was for a 30 turbine wind farm 7 km southwest of

(Cumbria), with a generating capacity of up to 108MW; electrical power supply to the mainland was to be via a ~25 km long 132kV cable making groundfall near

Heysham Heysham ( ) is a coastal town in Lancashire, England, overlooking Morecambe Bay. It is a ferry port, with services to the Isle of Man and Ireland, and the site of two nuclear power stations. Demography Administratively, Heysham is part of th ...

, with connection to the mainland electrical grid at an extension to an existing

electricity substation A substation is a part of an electrical Electricity generation, generation, electric power transmission, transmission, and electric power distribution, distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perf ...

south of

Heysham nuclear power station Heysham nuclear power station is operated by EDF Energy in Heysham, Lancashire, England. The site is divided into two separately-managed nuclear power stations, Heysham 1 and Heysham 2, both with two reactors of the advanced gas-cooled reactor ...

. Turbines were expected to have ~50m radius blades, with a 75m hub height, and be in water at a depth of ~20m, with a ~32.5m sub-sea bed monopile foundation; the turbines were to be spaced approximately 500m apart in four rows aligned to face the prevailing southwesterly winds, with a row spacing of ~750m.

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 5 years. 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 Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...

's shipyard in Belfast. In exceptions where pile driving of monopile foundations failed, drilling was used to form the monopile foundations. IEC 1A class Vestas V90-3.0MW wind turbines were used, mounted on a 75m tower connected to monopiles supplied by a Sif/Smulders joint venture. Turbine to offshore substation electric connection were at 33kV, with the voltage stepped up to 132kV at an offshore substation supplied by

Areva T&D Areva S.A. is a French multinational group specializing in nuclear power headquartered in Courbevoie, France. Before its 2016 corporate restructuring, Areva was majority-owned by the French state through the French Alternative Energies and Atom ...

(transformer), Sif/Smulders (superstructure and monopile) and designed by KBR and

Mott MacDonald The Mott MacDonald Group is a consultancy headquartered in the United Kingdom. It employs 16,000 staff in 150 countries. Mott MacDonald is one of the largest employee-owned companies in the world. It was established in 1989 by the merger of M ...

. Cables were supplied by Prysmian (33kV) and Nexans (132kV). Construction of the wind farm was completed in June 2006 with the first power generated in March 2006. The operator is ''Barrow Offshore Wind Limited'', owned by Centrica and Ørsted.

Operation

Since 2008 (to 2012) the farm operated at between 30 and 40%

capacity factor The net capacity factor is the unitless ratio of actual electrical energy output over a given period of time to the theoretical maximum electrical energy output over that period. The theoretical maximum energy output of a given installation is def ...

, generating between 240 and 320 GWh of electrical energy per year. Its

levelised cost The levelized cost of electricity (LCOE), or levelized cost of energy, is a measure of the average net present cost of electricity generation for a generator over its lifetime. It is used for investment planning and to compare different methods ...

has been estimated at £87/MWh. 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. In 2014 Ørsted acquired Centrica's 50% holding in the wind farm.

References

Sources

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External links

* {{Authority control Offshore wind farms in the Irish Sea Wind farms in England Ørsted (company) wind farms Buildings and structures in Cumbria

Offshore Wind Farm Offshore wind power or offshore wind energy is the generation of electricity through wind farms in bodies of water, usually at sea. There are higher wind speeds offshore than on land, so offshore farms generate more electricity per amount of c ...