The first wind turbine has been installed at the 913MW Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm, off Germany.
The wind farm, which is jointly owned by Orsted and Nuveen Infrastructure, is on track to be commissioned in 2025.
Borkum Riffgrund 3’s first wind turbine was installed by the installation vessel Seaway Ventus from Seaway 7.
The installation will also be carried out in equal parts by Wind Osprey from Cadeler.
A total of 83 Siemens Gamesa wind turbines, each with a rated capacity of 11MW, will be installed at the offshore wind farm.
Borkum Riffgrund 3 is the first offshore wind farm to be built by Orsted in Germany without an offshore substation (OSS).
The new connection concept provides for a direct connection of the wind turbines via 66 kV connection cables to the DolWin Epsilon offshore converter platform operated by TenneT.
Parallel to Borkum Riffgrund 3, the installation of the wind turbines for Gode Wind 3 (253MW), also owned by Orsted and Nuveen, are already underway.
As with Orsted’s current offshore wind farms, operation and maintenance will be carried out from Norden-Norddeich and Emden in East Frisia in Germany and Eemshaven, Netherlands.
Borkum Riffgrund 3 is one of the first offshore wind farms to be awarded without subsidies in the world, made possible by several long-term corporate power purchase agreements (CPPA), which Orsted has signed with industrial and technology customers.
Peter Obling, Head of Continental Europe at Orsted, said: “Borkum Riffgrund 3 is an icebreaker in offshore wind.
“It was the first offshore wind project in the world to be awarded on a merchant basis, and it’s the first offshore wind farm in Germany to break the 900MW-mark.
“I’m proud to see that the first turbine is now installed, and we look forward to completing this milestone project.”