Situated 85km into the North Sea off the coast of Groningen, the Gemini wind park is one of the world’s largest. Its 150 turbines cover 68 square kilometres, and provide an installed capacity of 600MW. According to Gemini, the location has some of the highest and most consistent wind speeds in the North Sea, averaging 36km/h.
“We successfully completed Gemini ahead of schedule, under budget and with an excellent safety record,” said Matthais Haag, Gemini’s managing director.
“Now fully operational, Gemini will produce 2.6TWh of sustainable energy every year, reducing the Netherlands’ CO₂ emissions by 1.25 million tons. We are proud to make this contribution to the realisation of the Netherlands’ sustainability targets.”
First conceived in 2010, the €2.8bn project is a collaboration led by Canada’s Northland Power, in partnership with Siemens Wind Power, Dutch maritime contractor Van Oord, and waste processing company HVC. The 150 Siemens turbines deliver power to two offshore high-voltage substations. Each substation is connected to a land station in Eemshaven by a 110km export cable. From there, the electricity is converted to 380Kv and delivered to the grid.
At full capacity, the Gemini wind farm should provide electricity to around 785,000 Dutch households. It is expected to contribute around 13 per cent of the country’s total renewable energy, and about 25 per cent of its wind power.
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