Siemens Wind Energy News: Siemens supplies 80 wind turbines and pro-vides service for EUR700 million in the North Sea

Siemens has been awarded an order by wpd group, Germany, to supply, install and service 80 SWT-3.6-120 wind turbines for the Butendiek offshore wind power plant off Germany’s North Sea coast. When it comes online in 2015, the wind power plant’s total generating capacity of 288 megawatts will be sufficient to supply some 370,000 households with ecofriendly electricity. The agreement also covers a long-term maintenance contract for a period of ten years (SWPS-430O), the first of its kind for an offshore wind project. Siemens is to provide a new logistics concept that includes a service operation vessel specially developed for accommodation and deployment to offshore wind facilities. The order volume including service is more than EUR700 Million.

This project company is made up of five investors: Siemens Financial Services, Marguerite Fund, Industriens Pension, PKA A/S (each 22.5 percent) and wpd AG (10 percent).

Butendiek is the eighth offshore wind power plant order that Siemens has won in German waters and the second in Europe with an equity stake from Siemens Financial Services.

“By 2020, we estimate that the combined installed electrical generating capacity of wind power installations worldwide will reach 500 gigawatts,” notes Felix Ferlemann, CEO of Siemens Energy’s Wind Power Division. “Offshore wind power plants constitute by far the fastest growing segment of this market. Maritime wind power is play-ing a key role in Germany’s energy turnaround efforts. Its broad acceptance among the general public and significantly higher energy capture than onshore installations are particular points in its favor."

As Randy Zwirn, CEO of the Service Division at Siemens Energy, points out: "Wind energy can make a major contribution to ensuring electrical power supply. To do so, however, wind turbines must be reliable and work at maximum output. This holds true on land just as it does under the harsh conditions at sea. Our experienced ser-vice technicians and intelligent maintenance concepts help to reliably maintain wind turbine performance over the entire estimated service life of these units - for up to 25 years.“

Butendiek, to be erected about 32 kilometers west of the island of Sylt near the Ger-man-Danish border, is the second project-financed offshore wind power plant in Germany for which Siemens is supplying wind turbines and services. The wind tur-bines SWT-3.6-120, each with a capacity of 3.6 megawatts and a rotor diameter of 120 meters, are to be erected across a surface area of 42 square kilometers in wa-ters measuring about 20 meters deep.

Siemens is also bringing a comprehensive service package SWPS-430O to the Bu-tendiek offshore project, tailored to ensure maximum long-term exploitation of the wind farm's power potential. These efforts include remote monitoring and diagnos-tics solutions implemented in conjunction with state-of-the-art weather forecasting techniques. This facilitates anticipatory, forward-looking service planning and en-ables maintenance work to be performed in bundled packages within suitable time-frames.

Siemens has also developed a new, customized logistics concept for Butendiek: Siemens’ service technicians will live and work on board a specially designed ship, the Service Operation Vessel. With its large spare part storage capacity and a re-dundancy in the crucial main components, this vessel is especially designed for far offshore challenges using a special access system to cross directly over to the wind turbine, helping to provide a crucial safety advantage in the harsh weather condi-tions on the North Sea.

Wind power and energy service are part of Siemens’ Environmental Portfolio. In fiscal 2012, revenue from the Portfolio totaled about €33 billion, making Siemens one of the world’s largest suppliers of ecofriendly technologies. In the same period, our products and solutions enabled customers to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than 330 million tons, an amount equal to the total annual CO2 emissions of Berlin, Delhi, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo.