Ørsted Confirms Siemens Gamesa As Wind Turbine Supplier For 1,386 Megawatt Hornsea Project Two Offshore Wind Farm

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Following an exclusivity agreement awarded by Danish energy group Ørsted in February of this year, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy has confirmed that it will provide 165 of its SG 8.0-167 DD wind turbines to the 1,386 megawatt (MW) Hornsea Project Two offshore wind farm set to be built in the Hornsea Offshore Wind Zone located off the west coast of England.

As is the nature with multi-million dollar contracts in the renewable energy industry, companies can sometimes — in their over-eager desire to highlight every new and important agreement — provide what seems like duplicate information to previous announcements. This week, for example, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has announced that it will supply 165 of its SG 8.0-167 DD wind turbines to the 1,386 MW Hornsea Project Two offshore wind farm being developed by Danish energy group Ørsted. This is somewhat confusing, considering that the two companies made what appears to be the same announcement in February of this year — a story we covered at the time.

It would appear, however, that the devil is again in the details, and that February’s announcement was of an “exclusivity” agreement between the two companies and this week’s announcement is the “official signing of the wind turbine order.” This wind turbine order goes down in history as the largest wind project in Siemens Gamesa’s history, but also the largest single wind turbine order in the history of the offshore wind energy sector — a position held by the 1,218 MW Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm, which signed an agreement with Siemens for 7 MW wind turbines. Thus, Siemens Gamesa has surpassed its own progenitor.

What is worth noting, however, is the way in which the development of the 1,386 MW Hornsea Project Two offshore wind farm has morphed over time. The project was originally conceived to require up to 300 wind turbines of between 4 MW and 5 MW. However, as offshore wind technology has developed, so too has the capacity of its wind turbines, and Siemens Gamesa can now supply the necessary 1,386 MW with fewer turbines thanks to its SG 8.0-167 DD turbines, meaning that the project will benefit from improved economic efficiency while at the same time reducing the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCoE) for the project.

“Ørsted is one of Siemens Gamesa’s key partners to transform offshore wind from wind farm level to a clean energy source in real power plant scale,” said Andreas Nauen, Offshore CEO at SGRE. “We are proud and pleased to meet this challenge within the framework of a strong and long-term collaboration with an experienced player like Ørsted.”

“We are delighted to continue our partnership with Siemens Gamesa,” added Duncan Clark, Ørsted’s Programme Director for Hornsea Projects One and Two. “We’ve worked with them on many other UK projects, including Race Bank, which was inaugurated last month, and was the first project to use blades manufactured at the facility in Hull.”

Further information was also given regarding the manufacture of the 165 SGRE wind turbines. As already noted, the nacelles for the fleet of Hornsea Project Two turbines will be produced at the company’s Cuxhaven factory in Germany, while the majority of the blades will be made at its Hull factory in the UK, where pre-assembly will also be carried out. The wind turbine towers are expected to be sourced from local UK suppliers, ensuring that a majority of the project’s manufacturing work will be based in the country paying for the project.

The entire Hornsea Offshore Wind Zone is now one large Ørsted project, after confirming it would build the 1,218 MW Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm in February of 2016, after nearly a year earlier acquiring the rights to build Hornsea Projects Two and Three. Construction on Hornsea Project One began in late January, with the installation of the first of 174 monopiles (right). Hornsea Project Two is now expected to begin construction in 2021, while Hornsea Project Three submitted an application for a Development Consent Order (DCO) on 14th May 2018 and is still a while away.

Siemens Gamesa did not respond for further comment on this week’s signing.