RWE offshore wind farm commences regular operation

Germany, March 23 -- Today, the RWE wind farm Kaskasi, located around 35 kilometres north of the island of Heligoland, officially commenced regular operation in the presence of Robert Habeck, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. With an installed capacity of 342 megawatts (MW), Kaskasi can supply the equivalent of over 400,000 households with green electricity.The 38 wind turbines of Kaskasi were successively commissioned over four months. Since the end of 2022, all turbines have been feeding green electricity into the grid. After all required tests were successfully completed, the wind farm is now commencing regular operation. The approval procedure for the wind farm started in spring 2019 and construction was greenlighted by the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (Bundesamt fa¼r Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie) at the end of 2020. The total offshore construction time was nine months, the investment costs for Kaskasi amounted to around 800 million euros. More than 100 people at RWE alone worked on implementing this large project - hand in hand with the staff from over 70 suppliers.The worldwide first recyclable rotor blades tested under real-life conditionsThree turbines at the Kaskasi wind farm are equipped with the first rotor blades that can be recycled at the end of their life cycle. What is special about this? Thanks to a new type of resin with a special chemical structure, the materials used for producing the Siemens Gamesa RecyclableBlade can now be separated again for the first time. This process ensures that the properties of the individual materials remain intact so that they can be reused. The recyclable rotor blades are also installed at the Sofia wind farm, which is currently being constructed by RWE off the UK northeast coast. After Nordsee Ost (295 MW) and Amrumbank West (302 MW), Kaskasi is the third RWE wind farm that will be operated and maintained from the company's service station on Heligoland. Around 100 service technicians, engineers and control room staff ensure smooth operation of the three wind farms. And RWE is continuing to drive forward the expansion of offshore wind energy off the German coast. North of the island of Juist, the company is developing the Nordseecluster in collaboration with a Canadian partner. The four sites will feature a total installed capacity of up to 1.6 gigawatts. The two projects (N-3.8 and N-3.7) of the first construction phase with a capacity of 660 MW are currently awaiting approval. The partners are planning to take part in the German government's offshore wind auctions and to exercise their rights of entry for the remaining two areas (N-3.6 and N-3.5) this year. Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Pivotal Sources. For any query with respect to this article or any other content requirement, please contact Editor at contentservices@htlive.com