Airtricity has signed an agreement with Port of Rømø to develop a service and maintenance centre for the proposed Butendiek offshore wind farm in the German North Sea.

The development includes buildings and shore facilities for offshore access systems by fast crew tender vessels and helicopters.

The offshore project has a capacity of 288 MW and Airtricity has entered into a turbine reservation agreement with Siemens Wind Power. The Butendiek project is located 34 kilometers off the island of Sylt at a water depth of 20 metres. Airtricity acquired the Butendiek project from the community-founded developer OSB Butendiek in 2007. The park will consist of 80 3.6MW wind turbines.

Airtricity, the renewable energy development division of Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), highlighted that the Port of Rømø offers a unique location to provide fast response times for wind turbine maintenance both by sea transport and helicopter air lifts.

Martin Huss, project director and general manager at Butendiek Offshore Windpark GmbH & Co KG, mentioned that in order to guarantee more than 25 years of high level availability of turbines and hence energy production, the nearby setup of 24-hour operation and maintenance facilities is essential to the project.

The port’s current extension plans will facilitate larger and other vessel types involved in the installation of wind turbines and steel foundations offshore.

Last month, Airtricity had signed an agreement with Siemens Energy for the delivery of 80 SWT-3.6-107 wind turbines for the same project.

The German government has set a target of 25,000 MW offshore wind power in the year 2030. The Butendiek wind farm will receive a feed-in-tariff of 15 Eurocents per kWh, and the transmission system operator is obliged to connect the wind farm to the grid on time.