News
05-05-2008
Official BARD prototype commissioning in Emden
Prime Minister Christian Wulff: “Offshore is picking up momentum”
Lower Saxony’s Prime Minister Christian Wulff (CDU) gave the symbolic starting signal for the commercial use of offshore wind power on Saturday afternoon (3.5.2008) in front of almost 400 invited guests. It was below the more than 90 meter tall offshore prototype where Wulff personally started the miniature model of a “BARD VM” wind turbine, which transmitted the start-up command via a luminescent cable to the real wind turbines, whose rotors began to turn slowly.
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Wulff stressed in his speech the importance of developing alternative energy sources:
“It is the aim of the government to increase the percentage of renewable energy to at least 25% of the total energy consumption by 2020. The main focus concerning the generation of electricity will rest upon the development of offshore wind power.
He called BARD Group a “successful pioneer” for the implementation of the first commercial offshore wind farm. BARD, he said, has developed into an ecologic and economic forerunner and role model. Within only four years, a new wind turbine was successfully developed for offshore use. “This is proof what our medium-sized businesses are capable of”, said the Prime Minister: “With great entrepreneurial drive, relying upon their own capabilities and that of their partners in the region, new production plants were opened in Emden and Cuxhaven.”
BARD Group currently employs 275 staff at the two named locations and one administrative branch in Bremen.
The CEO of BARD Engineering GmbH, Heiko Roß, thanked the politicians, who, over the past two years, have created the necessary conditions for the rapid increase of the use of offshore wind power. Roß explicitly mentioned the infrastructure planning acceleration law, which forces the network operators to connect to offshore wind farms. He was hoping that the amendment of the renewable energies law1, available already as draft, could be passed before the parliamentary break this summer. “The planning of various businesses in the offshore wind power industry is currently resting on these two cornerstones.”
BARD Engineering GmbH has completed all preparations to start building the first large wind farm in the North Sea around May next year. The company will build a total of 80 wind turbines with a capacity of five megawatts each about 100 km northwest of Borkum. The electricity generated there will be sufficient to supply around 400.000 homes. The third “BARD VM” test plant with the first offshore foundation “BARD Triple I” is already planned to be built in late summer in the estuary of the river Jade off Hooksiel.
The special construction vessel ”Wind Lift I“, which can use its four 70 meter legs to elevate itself out of the water, is being built in the Lithuanian city of Klaipeda. The wind turbines are to be installed using the vessel’s heavy duty crane.
The foundations, weighing almost 500 tons, are built byBARD subsidiary, Cuxhaven Steel Construction GmbH (CSC). The serial production of the offshore foundations has already started in Cuxhaven two weeks ago. Both BARD prototypes located at the Rysumer Nacken achieved, even in the first weeks of testing, a noticeable higher output than expected, said Roß. “The offshore train is picking up momentum now”, added Wulff. “Let us work together to make it go even faster.”