Vestas to supply biggest project Down Under

Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas will supply 140 V112-3.0 MW turbines to Australia’s largest wind project, the Macarthur Wind Farm.

The 420 MW farm is being jointly developed by AGL Energy Limited and Meridian and is located in the Western District of Victoria, Australia, between the towns of Macarthur, Hawkesdale and Penshurst.

Vestas, in consortium with Leighton Contractors, will jointly install the Macarthur Wind Farm.

The contract comprises a full engineering, procurement and construction contract and a 10-year service agreement. The first turbines are expected on site during Q3 2011 with the whole project expected fully installed by the first half of 2013.

AGL is a publicly listed electricity generator and retailer operating in the Australian market, while Meridian is the largest state-owned renewable energy generator and retailer in New Zealand and a renewable energy developer in Australia. Both AGL and Meridian are Vestas’ customers and have existing wind farms with Vestas at the Wattle Point (AGL), and Te Apiti and White Hill Wind Farms (Meridian).

PNE Wind eyes offshore opportunities

German wind farm developer, PNE Wind, has highlighted that significant progress on the Gode Wind II offshore wind farm and the strengthened financial and equity base have provided a solid foundation for the further expansion of the company.

The company announced that it hopes to capitalise on the construction of the offshore projects even as it mentioned that the expansion of offshore wind power is already in full swing in Europe.

The company has increased its operating profit modestly in the first half of 2010, despite recording a drop in revenues.

According to the company, the run-up costs for the development of the foreign business and the project pipeline burdened the results in the second quarter, since the first projects abroad will not be realised before 2011.

In the medium to long-term, the company forecasts additional positive effects for the wind power market in Germany owing to the start-up of re-powering, which means the replacement of old by new wind power turbines.

PNE Wind is achieving its published forecast for EBIT for 2010-2012 at €42-54 million over the whole period.

The wind company’s EBIT rose 2.5% to €8.2 million, despite a 58% dip in revenues to €41.1 million from €98.6 million in the corresponding period last year.

PNE Wind generated earnings before taxes (EBT) of about €6 million and exceeded the previous year’s results of € 5.7 million. Consolidated profit as at June 30, 2010 thus amounted to € 5.9 million (previous year: € 4.9 million).

Nordisk Vindkraft, HgCapital sign deal

NV Nordisk Vindkraft AB and HgCapital, the UK-based private equity group, have signed agreements for the sale and construction of the Ytterberg wind farm in the Malå Municipality, Västerbotten County, Sweden. 

The 44MW project was developed by Nordisk Vindkraft, a subsidiary of Renewable Energy Systems. The company will also build the project under an EPC contract, using 22 V-90 2MW turbines supplied by Vestas. 

HgCapital provided the equity for the project from its managed funds, and arranged 17-year project financing underwritten by Commerzbank.

Ytterberg is the second project on which NV Nordisk Vindkraft AB, HgCapital, Vestas and Commerzbank have cooperated in the Swedish market. In 2007, the same group developed and built the 95MW Havsnäs project in Jamtland.

Construction has already started, and the project should be fully operational in early 2012. 

Block Island wind farm gets RI energy commission’s nod

The Rhode Island (RI) Public Utilities Commission has approved a power purchase agreement between wind developer Deepwater Wind and National Grid for the proposed wind farm off the coast of Block Island.

Under the agreement, National Grid, the state’s largest utility, will purchase energy from the wind farm for 24.4 cents/kWh over 20 years. The utility has also agreed to purchase half of the power produced by the much larger Cape Wind project, at a lower rate of 18.7 cents/kWh.

The Block Island wind farm will be an eight-turbine pilot project that will include a transmission cable to connect it to the island and the mainland. The wind farm will provide most of the power for the island with excess power being fed to the mainland grid.

The Associated Press reported that a three-member commission, a quasi-judicial body, approved the agreement after weighing up the economic and environmental benefits and whether the terms were reasonable for ratepayers.

Cape Wind gets FAA’s approval

In another positive step after its amended long-term power purchase agreement with National Grid was found to be in the ‘public interest’, the Cape Wind project has received yet another approval, referring to the project’s environmental and economic benefits.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has upheld and finalised its May 17th ‘Determination of No Hazard’ of Cape Wind by its Denial of Petitions for Discretionary Review that were filed by project opponents which means that its environmental and economic benefits and have been verified.

According to Cape Wind, the project’s environmental and economic benefits have been verified in a comprehensive permitting review, which has been concluded with Federal and State agencies determining that Cape Wind is in the public interest. Cape Wind has also cleared its navigation reviews with Washington, DC-based FAA and with the U.S. Coast Guard.

In another related development, Cape Wind’s amended long term Power Purchase Agreement with National Grid has been found to be in the ‘public interest’ by Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley who has recommended that it be approved by the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities.

Sea Energy to use Ampelmann ship platforms

Aberdeen-based offshore wind development company Sea Energy has signed an exclusivity agreement with high-tech offshore access solutions developer Ampelmann to use the latter’s ship-based self-stabilising platforms. 

SeaEnergy plans to use the Ampelmann platforms aboard Ulstein X-Bowvessels and recently signed a letter of intent with Ulstein to co-develop new service vessels for the offshore wind industry.  

This agreement takes SeaEnergy an important step closer to the launch of a marine services business aimed at providing support services for the construction, commissioning and operations & maintenance phases of offshore wind farms.

The integration of the Ulstein X-Bow vessel and the Ampelmann platform system will help to maximise the time that wind farm developers can put technicians onto offshore turbines.

The combined Ampelmann and X-Bow system is capable of staying at sea 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing access to wind turbines virtually all year round, according to the company.

The Ampelmann platform is specifically designed to actively compensate for vessel motions and is the only platform of this type that does not require a docking station to be pre-fitted on the turbine structures.

Corus to manufacture turbine foundations

Steelmaker Corus plans to construct a new £31.5-million manufacturing plant in Teesside, which would potentially create 220 jobs.

According to the company, the preliminary engineering work is underway at the Corus Redcar site to develop a new facility to produce steel foundation structures – called monopiles – used to secure offshore wind turbines to the seabed.

The plan is to redeploy and re-equip redundant buildings on the company’s 3,000-acre Teesside site for monopile production and shipment of the structures, which can weigh as much as 650 tonnes.

Corus indicated that in the UK alone, it estimates that about six million tonnes of steel will be needed over the next 10 years to make the foundations and tower structures for offshore wind turbines.

Siemens, Samsung C&T Corp ink pact

Siemens Energy and Samsung C&T Corporation have signed an agreement to supply wind turbines with a total capacity of up to 600 MW to select wind projects in southern Ontario.

Siemens will also establish a blade-manufacturing site in Canada that will create up to 300 jobs in the province.

Siemens has been working with Samsung C&T and its development partner Pattern Energy on this first phase of development under Ontario's Feed-in Tariff (FIT) programme where Samsung committed to develop 2,000 MW of wind power over the next six years.

The installed capacity of wind power in Canada is expected to increase from 3,400 MW today to more than 15,000 MW in 2020.

In Canada, Siemens has installed a total of 130 2.3-MW rated wind turbines at Kruger Energy’s 101.2-MW Port Alma wind farm and TransAlta’s 197.8-MW Wolfe Island wind farm in Ontario, and is supplying an additional 152 units of its 2.3-MW wind turbines to four recently announced projects, which will bring Siemens installed capacity to a total of 550 MW by the end of 2011. 

Siemens to supply 98 turbines to Oklahoma

Utility Oklahoma Gas & Electric (OG&E) has completed the purchase of all of the project development assets needed to begin construction of the Crossroads wind farm in North-western Oklahoma.

The development means that OG&E has finalised a turbine-supply agreement with Siemens, enabling Renewable Energy Systems Americas Inc. (RES Americas) to begin construction later this month.

The US$451 million project, approved July 29 by the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, will add 227.5 MW of renewable generating capacity to the OG&E portfolio, with 95 turbines rated at 2.3 MW each, plus three 3-MW, direct-drive turbines.

Upon completion of the wind farm in the second half of 2011, Crossroads will bring OG&E’s wind capability to 780 MW, which will amount to approximately 10 percent of the company's total generating capacity.

The Crossroads wind farm will be built in Dewey County near Canton and will connect with OG&E’s new Windspeed transmission line.

For Siemens, Crossroads is the company’s third project with OG&E.

Siemens is set to install its first three SWT-3.0-101 direct drive wind turbines in the US, a few months after the market release of this new, gearless technology.

Offshore wind: Diver bottleneck looms

More than 2,200 commercial divers will need to be recruited over the next six years to help build and develop Europe’s offshore wind sector as it rapidly expands over the next six years, according to a new report commissioned by subsea training provider The Underwater Centre.

The study, which was carried out by Douglas Westwood, focuses on the installation and maintenance phases of offshore wind farm development over the next six years. It concludes that 1,700 divers will be needed during the installation phase where there is a potential for 17.7GW to come online. 2013 will see a peak in demand with 500 divers required, mainly in the UK and Germany.

With the potential of 3,800 turbines coming online in Europe by 2016, an additional 500 divers would be required during the operations and maintenance phase.

The report highlighted:

• During the operational phase, 1.3 divers will be needed for every 10 turbines
• From 2010-2016, the majority of divers required for the installation phase will be in water depths from 20-39m
• It is projected that turbines in depths of more than 40m will become more frequent, leading to an increased need for divers
• Before 2008, most turbines were installed in depths between 10-19m. Now projects are moving further offshore, with 90% of new developments in depths greater than 20m