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Sandbank construction commences

By: Lewis Holdsworth 08/07/2015 Vatenfall

Foundations General Windfarms

Pile driving has begun on monopile "SB 62", marking the start of construction of the "Sandbank" wind farm 90 km off the coast of Sylt by Vattenfall and SWM. After the DanTysk offshore wind farm, Sandbank is now the second infrastructure project that Vattenfall and SWM are realizing together.

The sister project, DanTysk, which is around 20 kilometres closer to the North Frisian coast, was officially put into operation on 30 April 2015. The investment costs for Sandbank are around EUR 1.2 billion. Vattenfall holds a 51% stake in Sandbank Offshore GmbH, which was set up to implement the project, while SWM holds a 49% stake. 72 Siemens wind power plants in the 4-megawatt (MW) class will be constructed, providing an installed capacity of 288 MW. Sandbank is planned to be fully commissioned in 2017. This will give them a combined portfolio of 576 MW of installed capacity, making Vattenfall and SWM some of the largest operators of offshore wind farms in Germany.

"The Sandbank project is part of our offshore cluster strategy which has the goal of further increasing the marketability of offshore technology. The cost efficiency of the planning, construction and operation of the wind turbines is of the highest priority. In doing so, we want to further advance efficient electricity generation in the North Sea. We are therefore very happy to see Sandbank go offshore," says Gunnar Groebler, Head of Business Area Wind at Vattenfall.

Christian Vogt, Head of Investment Management at Stadtwerke München: “SWM have highly ambitious expansion plans for renewable energies. By 2025, we want to be generating enough green power to supply all of Munich. Wind energy, particularly offshore, will play a vital role in the implementation of this. It has the most potential and is even able to provide base loads. For this reason Stadtwerke München have become involved with two further offshore wind energy projects in addition to DanTysk and Sandbank. This comparatively young technology has already overcome a huge learning curve and we expect even more significant synergy effects from Project Sandbank as a DanTysk sister wind farm.”

The Sandbank offshore wind farm is part of the Vattenfall Sylt-Esbjerg-Cluster, which is located in German-Danish territorial waters and also includes the Horns Rev 3 and Horns Rev 1 wind farms. The idea behind the cluster is to continue standardising offshore wind energy processes on all levels, thereby achieving a sustainable cost reduction of the technology. Parallel to the Sandbank project, Vattenfall is also currently implementing the "Kentish Flats Extension" offshore project in the United Kingdom with an installed capacity of 50 MW. Construction of the wind turbines has already begun and the Kentish Flats Extension is planned to be put into operation before the end of 2015.

The SWM is involved in the Gwynt y Môr project in the Irish Sea. This wind farm has an installed capacity of 576 MW and was officially inaugurated on 18 June. SWM is also involved in the Global Tech 1 project. GT1 is located 180 km from Bremerhaven in the North Sea, has an installed capacity of 400 MW and is currently in the commissioning phase.

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Sandbank construction commences

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