Danish energy company Ørsted and clean energy investment fund manager Glennmont Partners have begun installation work on the 913MW Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind project in the German North Sea.
Jan De Nul will install 100m steel monopile foundations weighing 1,500 tonnes.
These structures will support 83 Siemens Gamesa 11.0-200 DD offshore wind turbines.
Each turbine has a 200m rotor diameter and 11MW of power generating capacity. They will be among the largest turbines deployed in the German North Sea.
To be located 50km offshore Lower Saxony, the project will be Germany’s largest wind farm by export capacity. It will be located next to Ørsted’s Borkum Riffgrund 1 and 2 offshore wind farms.
Borkum Riffgrund 3 will generate power for a million German homes and avoid 2.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually. The project is expected to be commissioned in 2025.
Ørsted reached an agreement with Glennmont Partners to sell a 50% stake in Borkum Riffgrund 3 in October 2021 for €1.2bn ($1.34bn).
The agreement was followed by the final investment decision on the project in December of the same year. The stake's sale was completed in February 2022.
The wind farm is being built by Ørsted via a full-scope engineering, procurement and construction contract. The company will also operate and maintain the project for 20 years.
Glennmont Partners CEO and managing partner Joost Bergsma stated: “The Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm is a landmark development both for Glennmont and for North Sea renewables more widely.
“It marks an attractive proposition for investors, providing over 900MW of reliable, clean, low-cost energy, and will be a significant step in meeting Europe’s decarbonisation and energy security ambitions.”
