The plant comprises 111 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 3.6 MW and a rotor diameter of 120 m. The wind project is owned by Danish utility company DONG Energy (50 per cent) as well as the two pension fund companies Pension Danmark (30 per cent) and PKA (20 per cent). In addition, together with DONG Energy, Siemens will handle the wind projects’ maintenance for a period of five years. The total electrical generating capacity will be sufficient to supply about 400,000 Danish households with clean electricity, covering about four per cent of Denmark’s overall power demand.
The Anholt offshore wind power plant is located off Denmark’s eastern coast, about 20 km northeast of the Jutland peninsula. Over a period of less than nine months, Siemens installed all 111 wind turbines over a surface area of 88 square km in water depths of up to 19 m.
“So far, Siemens has installed more than 3,900 megawatts of offshore wind power capacity,” said Markus Tacke, CEO of the wind power division at Siemens' energy sector. “Our projects are reaching the magnitude of fossil-fuel power plants and we are making significant progress with efforts to industrialize offshore wind power, thereby further reducing the costs of offshore wind power.”
Currently, Siemens has orders for offshore projects totalling a capacity of about 5 GW.
The Danish government is planning to meet one half of the country’s demand for electricity with wind power by 2020. As of 2012, wind power already accounted for about 30 per cent of that nation’s generated electricity. Denmark’s target is to become independent of fossil fuels for electrical power generation by 2050.
