First turbine installed at Irish Sea wind farm

The first of turbine has been installed at the 389MW West of Duddon Sands offshore wind farm in the East Irish Sea.

When completed, the joint venture between DONG Energy and ScottishPower Renewables will consist of 108 turbines.

Over the coming months, the remaining 3.6MW turbines will be installed by the vessels Sea Installer and Pacific Orca, with the wind farm expected to be fully completed in 2014.

The wind farm is the eighth in the UK for DONG and when completed will take the company past the mark of 2.4GW of constructed capacity, with a target of 6.5GW by 2020.

Charlie Jordan, ScottishPower Renewables project director, said: “This is another major milestone for the West of Duddon Sands project, and testament to the hard work of both ScottishPower Renewables and DONG Energy, as well as the contracting teams and suppliers working on the project.

“The operations at Belfast Harbour have been working well, and we are delighted with progress on the project.”