The 288MW Butendiek Offshore Wind Farm is located 32km west of the island of Sylt in the North Sea area of Germany. WPD, Siemens Financial Services, Marguerite Fund, Industriens Pension, CDC Infrastructure, EWZ and PKA jointly own the project. WPD is the developer and operator of the project on behalf of the partners.
Offshore construction work on the project began in March 2014. Project construction was fully completed in August 2015. The €1.3bn ($1.7bn) project is designed to generate 1,290GWh of power a year, which meets the electricity needs of 370,000 households.
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Butendiek Offshore Wind project location
The Butendiek Offshore Wind power project site covers an area of 42km² in the German Exclusive Economic Zone Water of the North Sea, close to the Danish-German border. The water depth at the project location is approximately 20m. As well as the attractive wind resources, the soil condition at the site is also said to be favourable.
German wind farm history and funding
The WPD group started developing the project after it had acquired 100% of Butendiek Offshore Windpark Holding from SSE Renewables, in September 2010.
Negotiations on the design, production, delivery and installation of the project were completed in 2011. Major supply contracts were secured by September 2011.
The implementation of the Butendiek Offshore Wind project became more certain following the agreement reached in February 2013. The project was financed through 67% debt and 33% equity.
Debt financing was provided by a consortium led by UniCredit, KfW Ipex and Bremer Landesbank. A consortium of lenders, involving the European Investment Bank (EIB), KfW Förderbank, Denmark’s Eksport Kredit and nine other commercial banks, provided €937m ($1.2bn) of loans. EIB alone contributed €450m ($602m) for the project.
Siemens Financial Services, Marguerite Fund, Industriens Pension, PKA, CDC Infrastructure, EWZ and WPD provided equity financing for the project.
Turbines supplied by Siemens
The Butendiek Offshore Wind Farm consists of 80 three-bladed Siemens wind turbines each having a rated output of 3.6MW. The turbines are mounted on tapered tubular steel towers.
The rotor diameter of each turbine is 120m. The rotor speed is variable and maximises aerodynamic efficiency. The power output of the rotor is guided by pitch regulation.
Each blade of the turbines is 58.5m long. The other components of the turbine include a microprocessor-based wind turbine controller, a 3,600kW asynchronous generator and a three-stage planetary/helical gearbox.
Each turbine tower is grounded upon a monopile foundation. Ballast Nedam’s Heavy Lift Vessel (HLV) Svanen was used for installing the foundations.
Butendiek Offshore Wind Farm contractors
The Dutch-German transmission grid operator TenneT TSO connected the wind farm to the grid through the SylWin-Cluster.
Siemens was awarded a contract worth €700m ($937m) to supply and install 80 SWT-3.6-120 wind turbines for the offshore wind farm. The contractual scope also included long-term maintenance support for ten years.
A contract worth more than €250m ($334m) was awarded to Ballast Nedam for the engineering, supply and installation of turbine foundations of the offshore wind farm.
Fabricom GDF Suez JV of Belgium delivered the offshore substation platform for the wind power project. Inter-array cabling of the project was provided by Visser Smit Marine Contractor, a company based in the Netherlands.
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