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Two REpower 5M Wind Turbines Placed Offshore Germany

December 4, 2006 | 3 Comments

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Hamburg, Germany [RenewableEnergyAccess.com] The REpower Systems AG has erected two REpower 5M offshore wind turbines in the DEWI-OCC test field in Cuxhaven/ Northern Germany.

"Depending on the wind speeds, the rotor spins up to twelve times per minute. The location of the test field near a North Sea dyke is perfectly suited for testing the operating performance under realistic wind conditions."

-- Jens Goesswein, REpower, project manager for the offshore division

Each turbine stands on five tower segments made of steel, and both have a hub height of 117 meters and a rotor diameter of 126 meters. When spinning, the 61.5-meter long rotor blades, transported by heavy-load trucks from Denmark to the building site, will cover an area of 12,469 square meters (roughly two football fields).

"Both turbines are supposed to be connected to the grid and start operating in December," said Jens Goesswein, Project Manager for the offshore division at REpower. "Then, depending on the wind speeds, the rotor spins up to twelve times per minute. The location of the test field near a North Sea dyke is perfectly suited for testing the operating performance under realistic wind conditions."

The first completed turbine was built for the utility EWE AG (Oldenburg/Lower Saxony), the second one for the EWC Windpark Cuxhaven GmbH, a joint venture of E.ON Energy Projects GmbH (Munich) and Essent Wind Deutschland GmbH (Duesseldorf).

In 2007, the company has plans to erect six more 5M turbines.

Additional Information

REpower Systems AG

Wind Power

3 Reader Comments

Comment
1 of 3

stephen-boulet-42137

December 4, 2006

I understand that the capacity factor for land based wind turbines is about 30%. I know it must vary by location, but does anyone know what range of CFs are attainable offshore?

Stephen

Comment
2 of 3

stephen-boulet-42137

December 5, 2006

Lots of great places to put these:

http://tinyurl.com/y3k8tr

I wish we made this a higher priority ...

Stephen

Comment
3 of 3

randy-tinkerman-56441

December 6, 2006

Offshore capacity factors approach and can exceed 40%, depending on the site resource. An important factor is reduced turbulence. However, it is important to remember that these turbines represent the first generation of such scale, with similar test turbines from several manufacturers having only operated at most a few years. Therefore the turbines may not reach expected capacity factors while continued development can be expected.

PS. Land-based turbines can also have capacity factors well in excess of 30%, depending on the site.

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