Rhyl Flats Offshore Wind Farm
Rhyl Flats will be RWE npower renewables' second offshore wind farm. The project was developed by a company called Celtic Offshore Wind Limited (COWL) who received full consents in 2002 to build and operate the scheme. npower renewables purchased the Rhyl Flats project from COWL in December 2002 and we are now constructing the wind farm.
In 2006, we carried out site investigation works on the area of seabed where the Rhyl Flats Offshore Wind Farm turbines will be located. The works comprised drilling boreholes and taking samples of the seabed using a jack-up barge vessel.
In July 2007, offshore foundation construction at the Rhyl Flats Offshore Wind Farm site began with installation of the scour protection, based out of the Port of Mostyn in Flintshire. The works involved the laying of rocks on the seabed at the turbine locations on the wind farm site. The rocks, which have been sourced from the Penrhyn Slate Quarry near Bangor, Gwynedd, will prevent localised erosion of the seabed around the turbine foundations.
Installation of the foundation piles themselves began in April 2008, and was completed in July 2008, when the offshore cabling installation commenced. To date the export cables installed between the beach and the wind farm have been completed. Work to complete the onshore electrical substation is ongoing, with energisation and commissioning of the wind farm's onshore substation and offshore export cables to commence in the winter and continue into spring next year. All offshore construction was suspended from 15th December 2008 in line with environmental consent conditions, and recommenced on 1 April 2009. During spring and summer 2009, construction of the 25 wind turbines will take place and the inter-array cabling will be laid. Project completion is anticipated in quarter four 2009.
Once operational, the Rhyl Flats Offshore Wind Farm will produce enough clean, green electricity every year to meet the average needs of approximately 61,000 homes, and will prevent the release of tens of thousands of tonnes of carbon dioxide (the main greenhouse gas contributing to global warming and climate change) to the atmosphere every year.
