By Kari Williamson
The 25 jacket foundations and one offshore transformer station have been installed 30 km off Oostende in water depths of 12-25 m.
The inter array cabling for the offshore wind farm is expected to be completed by the end of the year and the offshore wind turbines and the offshore substation will be installed at the beginning of 2012.
Thornton Bank’s second construction phase has 24 6 MW wind turbines on around 10 km2.
The third construction phase of the offshore wind farm will be from 2012 until 2013 on a 12 km2 area, also with 24 wind turbines.
The laying of a second 150 kV 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 a total installed capacity of around 325 MW.