This week, RWE Innogy officially opened the 90MW Rhyl Flats Offshore Wind Farm, situated five miles off the north Wales coast in Liverpool Bay.
Rhyl Flats is the biggest Welsh power station producing energy from renewable sources. Its 25 wind turbines will power the equivalent of 61,000 households per year and save several tens of thousands of tonnes of carbon emissions.
The offshore construction work at Rhyl Flats began in April 2008. In all, 25 Siemens wind turbines, each with a capacity of 3.6MW, were mounted in an area of nearly four square miles. The foundation piles were sunk at a depth of around 50ft.
RWE Innogy has been running the North Hoyle (60MW) offshore wind farm off the Welsh coast since 2004. Only a few miles further south, the company is planning to build Gwynt y Môr Wind Farm, which will have several hundred megawatts of installed capacity.
In addition, RWE Innogy has a 50 per cent share in the Greater Gabbard Wind Farm located off the Suffolk coast. Following its completion in 2011, this wind farm will have a total capacity of 500MW.
RWE Innogy is also planning to promote the offshore wind business off the continental European coast. In Belgium, the company is involved in building the Thornton Bank Wind Farm, the first 30MW stage of which has already come on stream.
RWE Innogy is also developing two wind farms in the North Sea off the German coast, with 300MW and 950MW of installed capacity.
What does the phrase “the equivalent of 61000 homes” mean? Surely the turbines provide no energy when the wind doesnt blow and very little in light winds? Where does the electricity come from for the 61000 homes when the wind stops? I would guess from nuclear and coal mostly. Until we have a meaningful measurement of the actual annual power output of wind turbines we should stop using these misleading phrases.
Let’s see, 90Mw/61k homes gives1.4kw per home, that ‘s enough power for half a kettle
Dam lot of engineering to boil half a kettle of water.
what is the carbon foot print of 3.6MW turbine? also what sort of pay back time do they achieve and and what is their impact on the enviroment.
61,000 households PER YEAR?
Lets be generous an say that the total of 90MW is produced for 75% of the time.
90MW * 0.75 * 8760hrs = 591,300,000kWhrs of energy produced per year. This is 9693 kWhrs per house (based on 61,000 houses). Wind farms aren’t about peak output but continuous energy output. So whilst 1.4kW doesn’t boil the kettle in a hurry it is a lot of lighting.