Dong Energy today officially opens its 258MW Burbo Bank 2 offshore wind project in Liverpool Bay, marking the maiden commercial deployment of an 8MW turbine.
The Danish developer’s ninth UK wind farm is the first to use the MHI Vestas V164 8.0MW turbine, the blade tips of which reach 195 metres above sea level.
“It is a very important milestone,” said Dong UK country manager Benj Sykes. “Scale and industrialisation are driving costs down.”
He added the project had benefited from UK supply chain content.
Half of the blades for the 32-turbine farm were produced at the MHI Vestas facility on the Isle of Wight and half the transition pieces were made by OSB in Teesside.
Dong have since contracted OSB to provide transition pieces for the 660MW Walney 3 in the Irish Sea and 1218MW Hornsea 1 project in the North Sea.
Dong will later this year open a new multi-million pound operations and maintenance base at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Merseyside.
The facility will employ 45 full-time staff and be used to service both Burbo 2 and the original 90MW Burbo Bank wind farm.
The latter came online in 2007 and was the first to commercially use Siemens 3.6MW turbines.
Dong began construction at Burbo 2 in 2015 and completed the project earlier this year following a winter build campaign.
Image: Dong Energy
