Positive
Project advancing - milestone achieved
High Impact
Major milestone or critical setback
The 183.6 MW Walney 1 (Phase 1) Offshore Wind Farm became fully operational in summer 2011 (commonly reported as 11 July 2011), comprising 51 Siemens SWT-3.6-107 turbines installed off the Cumbria coast in the Irish Sea. The site sits ~14 km west of Walney Island and exports power via a 45 km subsea cable to a substation at Heysham. Walney 1 was developed and operated by Walney (UK) Offshore Windfarms Limited, a consortium of DONG Energy (50.1%, now Orsted), Scottish and Southern Energy (25.1%) and OPW (24.8%, jointly owned by PGGM and Ampere Equity Fund). First power was achieved on 13 January 2011. The wind farm was formally inaugurated alongside Walney 2 in February 2012, when the combined 367 MW site briefly held the title of the world's largest offshore wind farm. Operational status by summer 2011 is corroborated by DONG Energy's 21 October 2011 announcement of the OFTO disposal of the Walney 1 transmission assets to Blue Transmission Walney 1 Limited (a Macquarie / Barclays JV) for ~GBP 105 million — under Ofgem's OFTO regime an OFTO transfer can only happen once the wind farm is fully commissioned. Blue Transmission's compliance statement was subsequently approved by Ofgem on 10 July 2013.