page_title: Burbo Bank Offshore Wind Farm
section_title: Burbo Bank
hierarchical_section_title: Burbo Bank Offshore Wind Farm / Burbo Bank
caption_attribution_description: English: Ørsted Logo
context_page_description: The Burbo Bank Offshore Wind Farm is a 348 MW offshore wind farm located on the Burbo Flats in Liverpool Bay on the west coast of the UK in the Irish Sea. It consists of an original 90 MW wind farm commissioned in 2007 and a 258 MW extension completed in 2017.
  The wind farm was developed in the 2000s by SeaScape Energy, which was acquired by DONG Energy in 2005. A 25 turbine installation using Siemens Wind Power 3.6 MW turbines was constructed from 2005, and officially opened in 2007. A further 32 8 MW turbines were constructed in 2016–17.
context_section_description: In September 2002 SeaScape Energy ( Zilkha Renewable Energy, enXco A/S, Wind Prospect Ltd. joint venture.) submitted an application to develop a Round 1 offshore wind farm site. The site, located on Burbo Flats in Liverpool bay (~7 km northwest of Wirral and ~6 km west of the Sefton coastline) was selected due to shallow water depths (0.5 to 8m at low tide), high wind speeds ~7 m/s (23 ft/s), and a generally favourable location including proximity to an electrical grid connection. Initial expectations were for a 30 × 3 MW turbine wind farm, with monopile foundations on a site of approximately  10 km² (3.9 sq mi). An electrical connection to the mainland grid was to be made by a seabed cable running southeast to Wirral, followed by a ~3.5 km underground cable to a substation at Wallasey. SeaScape received a capital grant of £10 million in 2003 to aid development of the project.
  In 2003 EDF subsidiary enXCo bought the interests of Wind Prospect in the project, the project became a joint venture between Elsam and EDF Energies Nouvelles in 2004 with Elsam taking 50% of the projecty. In September 2005 Siemens Wind Power was selected as the turbine supplier, with 25 3.6 MW turbines ordered at a cost of over €90 million. In December 2005 Dong Energy (now Ørsted A/S) became sole owner of the project.
  Construction began in June 2006. Contractor for the foundation installation was MT Højgaard: the foundation design was by Ramboll, Smulders supplied the WTG foundations, turbine towers by Bladt Industries, monopiles and transition pieces were from Sif; piling was done by Menck, with Mammoet Van Oord supplying lifting barge platform Jumping Jack.
  The contractor for the substation was EDF Energy Contracting, cable installation was by McNicholas Construction Services Ltd. (onshore) and Submarine Cable & Pipe (offshore), with cables supplied by ABB Group. Inter turbine and grid connection to the substation was at 33 kV, with voltage step up to 132 kV at the substation for grid connection.
  The facility began generating power in July 2007, and the wind farm was officially inaugurated on 18 October 2007, and the facility was commercially operational by the end of 2007; the capital cost of developing the wind farm was €181 million.
  Between 2008 and 2010, the capacity factor was between 32 and 35%. In 2009 the whole wind farm was put out of action for 4 weeks due to a failure in the underground electrical cable connecting to the National Grid. During summer 2010 Siemens decided to change the blade bearings on all 25 turbines as a pre-emptive measure after corrosion was found in blade bearings found on other sites.
  At the end of the windfarm's operational life (25 years) the wind farm will be decommissioned.
caption: The logo of Orsted who owns the wind farm.
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