With installation of the turbines nearly complete, the emphasis has shifted to commissioning work carried out from Ramsgate.
By 1 June, 91 of the Thanet project’s 100 turbines were in place on their monopile foundations. Turbine number C08 generated the first power on 16 May.
“It has been going fantastically well,” said Vestas project manager Jan Thomsen. “The erection work should be finished within the next three weeks, well ahead of time. We were scheduled to finish by the end of July, but it looks as if we will be done around 20 June.”
As installation work nears its end, the focus has shifted from the assembly port of Dunkirk to Ramsgate in the UK. Just half an hour’s boat ride from the site, Ramsgate is the commissioning base for around 90 Vestas employees and subcontractors.
Continuous learning and a flexible approach to turbine commissioning have helped the Ramsgate crew maintain the project’s good progress.
“At the start, we were taking seven or eight days for mechanical and electrical (M&E) completion – the final assembly that can’t be done until a turbine is in place on its foundation,” said installation manager Jesper Fyhn Friis. “But with practice we are now down to just three or four days.”
“For greater efficiency, at the Thanet site, it has been decided to split the commissioning tasks into three ‘chunks’ which allow a great deal of the commissioning work to take place prior to the grid supply being available” said site commissioning manager Ian Hampton.
Commissioning usually relies on power from the grid via the sub-sea cables to energise the turbine’s electrical systems, so this new way of working has required some creative thought. In the first “pre-commissioning” stage, technicians install a portable generator onto the turbine platform to provide temporary power. For the second stage, an umbilical cable links the turbine to a large boat-mounted generator, which allows many of the Turbines auxiliary systems to be proven.
Once the sea cables are energised, the commissioning stage properly takes just one more day – after which the turbine can start generating.
