North Hoyle Offshore Wind Farm

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The wind farm North Hoyle is an offshore wind farm in the Irish Sea (Liverpool Bay / Bay of Liverpool) about 8 km off the coast of Denbighshire, Wales (United Kingdom) between Rhyl and Prestatyn.

Construction

In the wind park are from 30 wind turbines of the type Vestas V80- 2.0 with a rotor diameter of 80 m and an installed electrical capacity of 2 megawatts, for a total of about 60 MW. The 30 turbines are distributed in an array of 6 × 5 in an area of ​​about 10 km ². The bay at this point water depths of 7-12 m. The gondolas with the generators are located at 58 meters above sea level. The steel towers on which the rotors are mounted, have a diameter of 4 meters. The electricity is passed through two submarine cables to a substation in Rhyl on land. The cable runs in the wind farm even in zigzag form of wind energy plant to plant, because these are strung like pearls on a string.

North Hoyle is the first of four offshore wind farms in the Liverpool Bay: The west neighboring Rhyl Flats went into operation in 2009 with 90 MW capacity. Further east lies Burbo Bank with 90 MW. The much larger farm Gwynt y Môr with 160 plants for 576 MW is under construction since the summer of 2012. Burbo bank is part of the Danish Dong Energy, the other three to RWE Innogy (formerly RWE npower ).

History

The farm North Hoyle is part of the " Round 1 " of the development program for offshore wind farms, the Crown Estate, which began in late 2000.

The park was built in 2003/2004 and inaugurated in 2004 by the British energy minister Mike O'Brien. At the time of completion it was the largest offshore wind farm in the UK.

The construction of the wind farm was officially supported by Greenpeace, the electricity produced was of npower under the brand name Juice ( German: Saft) marketed as green electricity.