E.ON has informed that the construction of the Arkona offshore wind farm in the German Baltic Sea has began with the first foundations laid in the seabed.
A total of 60 so-called monopiles will be installed for the Arkona wind park before the transition pieces, towers and turbines are mounted on them. The foundation for the common substation with grid operator 50Hertz was installed end of July.
The steel tubes have a diameter of between seven and nearly eight meters and weigh up to 1,200 tons. Since production started in September 2016, the manufacturer EEW Special Pipe Constructions in Rostock has processed about 53,000 tons of steel for the Arkona project, E.ON noted.
In terms of transport to the construction site, the monopiles are sealed at both ends, launched and floated to the construction site. There, the heavy-load crane ship Svanen will hammer the monopiles 40 meters deep into the seabed – at water depths ranging from 23 to 37 meters.
The Arkona project is located 35 kilometers northeast of the island of Rügen. The wind farm will have a capacity of 385 megawatts (MW) and will be able to supply up to 400,000 households with renewable energy from 2019 onwards.
The project, a joint venture between E.ON and Statoil, will see the installation of 60 Siemens six-megawatt turbines.