By Renewable Energy Focus staff

The 50 m high and 550 tonnes steel jacket foundation has been placed on top of the foundation piles that were already installed. The rest of the offshore wind turbine foundations will be installed in water depths of 12 25 m this summer.

“We are well on schedule with the Thornton Bank project. The logistics chain is working extremely well and it allowed us to complete the preparations of the underwater construction site and the positioning of the foundation piles in the past few weeks as planned. Unless the weather thwarts our plans, the coming weeks and months will not only see the completion of the foundation work but also the wiring for the wind turbines and for the offshore substation,” says Prof Martin Skiba, Head of Offshore Wind Power at RWE Innogy.

The 24, 6 MW offshore wind turbines and the substation will be installed early next year.

The third construction phase will be from 2012 until 2013, also with 24 offshore wind turbines.

The laying of a second 150 kV underwater export cable to the feed-in station in Sas Slijkens, is also planned in spring 2012.

On completion, Thornton Bank offshore wind farm will have installed capacity of around 325 MW.