Northland Power says it is still analysing why it encountered problems with its mono bucket foundation demonstration on the Deutsche Bucht offshore windfarm but is bringing the demo to a halt
The company had planned to install two turbines utilising mono bucket foundations at Deutsche Bucht, however as first announced on 25 February 2020, the installation of the demonstrator project was paused in Q4 2019 following technical issues.
An evaluation of the cause of the technical issues is underway and will not be completed until mid-year. Due to the timing issues associated with the technical review, among other considerations, Northland has elected to permanently forego the installation of the demonstrator.
Deutsche Bucht will therefore have 31 monopile foundations and turbines, which were installed and operational, ahead of schedule, with a total capacity of 252 MW. The 31 turbines have been generating power since the end of September 2019 and contributed pre-completion revenues in sales of US$96M in 2019.
The decision to not proceed with the demo will not affect Northland’s 2020 financial guidance since the contributions from the project were excluded from the guidance estimates provided.