Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy claimed a milestone when it installed turbine 51 at East Anglia One: it was offshore direct drive wind turbine number 1,000, eight years on from the first the company supplied. The company now has 1000 more direct drive turbines in its current order book, illustrating how fast the offshore wind industry is building out.

According to performance data collected by Siemens Gamesa, its direct drive offshore wind turbine fleet has produced approximately 34.6TWh hours of electricity since the first unit was installed in 2011. This would equal the annual consumption of every household in Denmark.

Andreas Nauen, chief executive of the Siemens Gamesa Offshore Business Unit, said: “The levelised cost of energy from offshore wind has decreased rapidly over the last few years, fully establishing the technology as on-par with traditional industrial power generation methods.”

In total SGRE has over 3,490 offshore wind turbines in operation globally with a combined capacity of more than 15.2GW.

Further reading

Humber expansion planned for offshore wind operations businesses

Labour promises £83 billion investment in offshore wind with majority public ownership

Offshore wind hits record low below £40/MWh

At least 7GW of new offshore wind in prospect as Crown Estate opens seabed leasing Round 4

Ørsted raises renewable generation focus as it divests customer-facing business