Wind

Huge Swedish offshore wind farm could use 22MW turbines: Freja CEO

Mainstream-Hexicon tie-up in consultation document for 2GW Cirrus wind farm even keeps option open for machines with up to 30MW rating

Freja Offshore CEO Magnus Hallman.
Freja Offshore CEO Magnus Hallman.Foto: Freja Offshore

Freja Offshore sees using 20-22MW turbines as the “best estimate” for its gigascale Cirrus project off southern Sweden, CEO Magnus Hallman said, although the developer in a consultation document for the wind farm is keeping its options open to even use machines with a rating of up to 30MW.

The Mainstream Renewable Power and Hexicon tie-up is seeking a permit for the 2GW project in the country’s economic zone Baltic Sea at about 50km southeast of Karlskrona.

“At this stage of our application, we wish to maintain operational freedom and flexibility on the choice of turbines and more,” Hallman told Recharge.

“The mention of 30MW turbines should therefore be noted in the context of capturing what could be made available to the market in the future.

“Our best estimate (at this point in time) lies in using turbines in the range of 20-22MW.”

There is no turbine larger than 16MW on the market yet among western OEMs only GE has said it has a 17-18MW machine in the works, but Swedish permits include a certain flexibility to allow for technological advances to be incorporated given offshore wind’s long lead times.
Orsted for its 1.5GW Skåne Havsvindpark project off southern Sweden two years ago had already sought a permit for up to 27MW wind turbines.
While European OEMs have said they will for now stick to their offshore wind models in the up to 16MW range – pointing to huge development costs – Chinese competitors have been more adventurous, with MingYang, Envision and Goldwind announcing larger models of up to 18MW, and some saying they may move beyond that soon.
A recent survey by research group Wind Research in Germany found wind industry experts expecting offshore wind turbine sizes to average 18.8MW by 2030.

As a result of current size increases in wind turbines, “it is expected that 30MW units with a rotor diameter of 330 meters will be launched between 2025 and 2030,” Freja said in the consultation document for Cirrus.

Asked by Recharge, whether Freja Offshore would consider to use Chinese models if companies there were to offer those very large offshore wind turbines, Hallman at least didn't rule out that possibility.

"Regarding turbine manufacturers, we will evaluate all relevant options that best suit our development needs at the appropriate time," he said.

The maximum height of turbines at Cirrus is stated at 370 meters, with rotor diameter 340 meters if installed power were to be 30MW at each of the 85 wind turbines, the company said in the document. If the array were to use 15MW machines only, 133 of them would be needed, Freja said.

Freja will probably try to stay below the maximum heights, though.

“We will endeavour to stay below 300-metre turbine heights to not interfere with the regular flight zones (where the low-level flight zone is below 300m) of the Swedish armed forces, a key stakeholder to our development,” Hallman added.

Sweden’s Navy considers the waters off Karlskrona, where Cirrus would be located, as very sensitive to the country’s defence and in the past decade in roughly the same Baltic Sea area has vetoed permits for the 2.5GW Blekinge project by Eolus Vind as well as Vattenfall’s 300MW Taggen project.
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Published 3 July 2023, 07:34Updated 14 August 2023, 13:05
EuropeSwedenFreja OffshoreHexiconMainstream Renewable Power