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SSE to decommission Hunterston turbine

By: Tom Russell 13/09/2019 SSE Renewables

General Windfarms

SSE Renewables has revealed plans for decommissioning the Hunterston National Offshore Wind Turbine Testing Facility with the controlled felling of the remaining turbine. The turbine is scheduled to be brought down by controlled explosion on Thursday 19th September, subject to suitable weather conditions.
Decommissioning follows six years of operation and testing. The original intention was to dismantle the components of the Siemens turbine by crane. However, a suitable method of safely dismantling the turbine by crane could not be established. As a result, controlled felling has been identified as the only feasible method for decommissioning the Siemens machine.

Hunterston’s project manager, Ross Cowie said “We have successfully employed the felling technique in conjunction with Keltbray to bring turbines down at other sites in the past, so we have the knowledge and experience to fell this turbine safely.”

Hunterston’s offshore-like wind resource, coupled with its existing grid connection, made it the ideal site for testing new offshore turbine technology on land, according to SSE. After successfully concluding its intended role, the site will be handed back to landowner Peel Ports following the decommissioning.

Director of Operations Jeremy Williamson said: “Our Hunterston testing facility was instrumental in enabling the deployment of offshore wind turbine technology for the UK’s offshore wind supply chain.

“The site had a key role in providing key data enabling the deployment of the 84 Siemens Gamesa 7 MW turbines at the recently completed Beatrice offshore wind farm in Scotland. Hunterston also allowed for testing under real-world conditions technologies which have since been deployed on offshore wind turbines across the world.”

SSE recently commissioned the Beatrice offshore wind farm off the Scottish Coast. The 588 MW project is situated 13 km off the Caithness coast and its 84 Siemens Gamesa SWT-7.0-154 are expected to be capable of generating enough electricity to power approximately 450,000 homes per year.

Each of Beatrice’s turbines, at 188m from sea level to blade tip, stands taller than the London Eye and the project is the largest offshore wind farm in the world to use jacket foundations. These jackets weigh around 1,000 tonnes each and are installed in water depths of over 56 metres.

For more information on offshore wind farm developments worldwide, click here.

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SSE to decommission Hunterston turbine

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