Beyond the harbour wall [offshore wind farm]

The Northumbrian port of Blyth is becoming established as a leading centre for wind energy development. During 1992, nine 300 kW wind turbines were installed along the harbour's east pier, to create the UK's first semi-offshore wind farm. This pioneering scheme has now been followed by the commissioning of the Blyth Offshore wind farm-a joint venture between Shell, Powergen Renewables, Nuon and Amec-comprising two 2 MW wind turbines located 1 km off the coast. Blyth Offshore represents the World's first multi-megawatt wind farm in serious seas. Blyth Harbour and Blyth Offshore were both developed by Hexham-based AMEC Border Wind. The period between these two projects has seen a dramatic increase in the size of wind turbines, represented by the jump from 300 kW to 2 MW, along with marked improvements in reliability allowing the maintenance interval to be increased from fortnightly to annually. These two factors, which significantly reduce installation and operating costs, combined with the difficulty in obtaining planning permission for onshore sites, have stimulated a growing interest in offshore schemes. The success of Blyth Offshore, along with specific governmental support for offshore wind power via the Renewables Obligation could lead to around six 50 MW wind farms in UK waters in the next few years. This paper discusses the technical aspects, design parameters, foundation design, the turbines, electrical infrastructure, installation and initial operation of the wind farm.