Baltic 1 Offshore Wind Farm

F2

EnBW Baltic 1 is the first German commercial offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea. It is 16 km off the coast of Mecklenburg -Western Pomerania, north of the peninsula fish - darss in the 12-mile zone. The wind farm was officially put into operation on 2 May 2011 and consists of 21 wind turbines, which supply about 50,000 households with electricity per year and save 167,000 tonnes of CO2. The plant is operated by EnBW Renewable and Conventional Generation AG, a subsidiary of the energy company EnBW. The power supply provides the company 50 Hertz offshore.

History

The first project planning began in 1997. It the environmental impact studies, a regional planning process as well as the approval process under the Federal Emission Control Act ( Federal Pollution Control Act ) were carried out. On 22 February 2005, the regional planning process concluded with a positive regional planning assessment of the overall project. The state of Mecklenburg- Western Pomerania had in May 2005, the project area as a special suitable area for wind energy use from; the federal government issued on 31 March 2006, the Federal Pollution Control Act permit for the wind farm. From March to September 2010, all 21 wind turbines and transformer station were built.

Since the spring of 2011, the transformer platform is connected via a submarine cable to the mainland and dined on April 3, 2011, the first kilowatt -hour of electricity into the grid. The commissioning ceremony took place on 2 May 2011 by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. From September 17 to October 15, 2011, all plants were shut because of a tractor had rammed the substation and then their ability to function had to be checked.

Technical structure

The wind farm has 21 individual wind turbine generators (WTG ) with a total installed capacity of 48.3 MW and a transformer platform that transforms the voltage from 33 kV for transmission to land at 150 kV high. The wind turbines are the type SWT 2.3-93 Siemens Wind Power with an electrical output of 2.3 MW. With the forecast annual energy yield of about 185 gigawatt hours of energy needs of about 50,000 households can be met.

The installation vessel " Sea Power " installed wind turbines in August 2010. The turbines have a hub height of 67 m above the water and a rotor diameter of 93 m. The existing water depth is between 16 m and 19 m, the mean wind speed at about 9 m / s As a foundation for the wind turbines are called monopile. The approximately 37 m long steel foundations were rammed by a installation vessel, the " Seaworker ", each with 3,000 hammer blows into the seabed. The footprint of the wind farm has the shape of a triangle with a size of about seven square kilometers. The corner coordinates of the wind farm area in the WGS -84 system are:

• 54 ° 36 ' 46 " N, 12 ° 37' 46" O54.61281944444412.629461111111 ( Northwest corner )
• 54 ° 37 ' 59 " N, 12 ° 41' 43 " O54.63313611111112.695286111111 (northeast corner)
• 54 ° 34 ' 59 " N, 12 ° 37' 44" O54.58314722222212.629 (southwest corner)

About a 77 km long operated with three-phase AC power line, the electrical energy is supplied to the substation Bentwisch near Rostock. 61 km of which are as submarine cables in the Baltic Sea. The cable has a conductor cross section of 1200 mm ² copper, a weight of 105 kg / m and a diameter of 30 cm. The insulation is made ​​of crosslinked polyethylene ( XLPE).

Costs and benefits

The cost of the EnBW Baltic 1 wind farm estimated the company at 200 million euros. At a specified EnBW peak power of 48.3 megawatts thus represent specific investment cost of 4140 Euro / kW. The wind farm is expected to produce up to 185 gigawatt hours of electricity annually in accordance with EnBW, enough for 50,000 homes. This would correspond to a load of 3830 full load hours per year, or about 44%. After the first full year of operation EnBW announced that the current yield was lying about 20% above expectations

The European Investment Bank ( EIB), KfW IPEX- Bank, Landesbank Baden- Württemberg ( LBBW) and the Dutch NIBC Bank granted for the project in late 2011 a loan of 138 million euros.

Criticism

Environmentalists feared impact on bird migration. It risks for shipping were feared because of its proximity to the busy waterway Kadetrinne and the communities on the Darß feared that the wind farm could deter tourists. So far, however, fears unconfirmed. Studies indicate a high level of acceptance of wind farms with holidaymakers after and make the prospect of wind farms could in the medium term as ' refuges of nature ', as a safe haven for endangered species, establish.