The first batch of nacelles is now awaiting shipment and installation at the Moray West project site offshore Scotland, Siemens Gamesa said via social media.
Earlier this month, the company sent off the first 108-metre-long blades from its manufacturing factory in Hull for the 882 MW offshore wind farm being built approximately 22.5 kilometres from the Caithness coastline.
Moray West will comprise 60 Siemens Gamesa’s SG 14-222 DD wind turbines with a rated capacity of 14.7 MW per unit installed on monopile foundations, with the work on installing the foundations currently in full swing.
Monopile installation started in October last year, after the arrival of Boskalis’s vessel Bokalift 2 at the site. As of this month, DEME’s Orion has joined Bokalift 2 to carry out the work and DEME’s installation vessel Apollo has been deployed to install transition pieces.
Moray West is scheduled to be fully operational in 2025. Once commissioned, the 882 MW offshore wind farm is expected to meet the electricity requirements of about 650,000 households in Scotland for 25 years.
Siemens Gamesa opened its plant in Cuxhaven in 2017 and manufactured the first nacelle in February 2018.
From 2018 to 2019, the company produced 7 MW offshore wind turbine nacelles in Cuxhaven and rolled out more than 400 nacelles for its 8 MW offshore wind turbines there until the summer of 2021, when the production of the 8 MW model ended with the conversion work for the new turbine generation.
In January 2022, Siemens Gamesa dispatched the first serially-manufactured SG 11.0-200 DD nacelle from the factory hall in Cuxhaven as the delivery of wind turbine components started for the now-operational Dutch 1.4 GW Hollandse Kust Zuid offshore wind farm.
