Lincs Offshore Wind Farm is an operational renewable electricity generating project situated off the east coast of the UK.
The construction of the project began in March 2010 and first power was achieved in August 2012. The wind farm has been fully operational since 2013.
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It has a total capacity of 270 MW and can generate enough electricity to power around 240,000 homes.
Lincs is operated and managed by the Danish multinational power company Ørsted. The total cost of the project is estimated to be £1bn ($1.1bn).
According to the company website, Ørsted holds 25% of the offshore wind farm. Green Investment Fund (GIG) (Offshore Wind Fund), Macquarie (MEIF5), BAE Systems Pension Funds (managed by Arjun Infrastructure Partners as GP) and USS are the other stakeholders.
Site details
Lincs Offshore Wind Farm is located around 8km (5 miles) off the Skegness coast, Lincolnshire, the UK.
The site includes an area of 35km2 oriented in the north-south direction. Water depth at the site ranges from 8m to 18m.
Project details
Lincs Offshore Wind Farm consists of onshore and offshore installations.
The onshore installations consist of cable routes and substations for the project, while the offshore component includes the wind farm site, wind turbines, and export cable route to high water.
Overall, the wind farm comprises 75 three bladed turbines of class SWT-3.6-120.
Each wind turbine has a power generating capacity of 3.6MW. The 58.5m long turbine blades have a diameter of 120m and weigh 18 tonnes.
The total height of each turbine is 145m and weighs 474 tonnes.
According to Ørsted, Lincs is the first offshore wind farm to feature a conical foundation and monopile connection to provide better stability throughout the life of the project
The minimum spacing between the wind turbines is 500m.
The wind turbines are connected to an offshore substation. This substation, equipped with two 240MVA transformers and 132kV high-voltage and 33kV medium-voltage switchgear, transmits electricity through two export cables to a grid connection point at Warpole, Norfolk.
The two 132KV, 40km export cables make landfall at the east of the river Nene on the southern coast of the Wash.
The cables are buried up to a depth of between 1m to 3m depending on the localised conditions of the seabed.
The onshore cables are buried and taken from landfall to a new 132KV/400KV substation located adjacent to the existing substation at Walpole, Norfolk.
A total of 185km of subsea cables were laid for the project. The construction of the wind farm involved the use of around 115,000 tonnes of steel along with 71,000 tonnes of turbine components.
Overall, the construction of the wind farm took around 3.5 million man hours.
Lincs farm is operated and maintained from the East Coast Hub in Grimsby. The centre employs more than 300 people.
During the Centrica-managed construction phase, more than 250 roles were supported.
Contractors involved
Siemens Gamesa supplied the wind turbines for the Lincs offshore wind farm. Originally, wind turbines of the class SWT-3.6-107 were selected for the project. Later it was upgraded to class SWT-3.6-120 to boost project returns.
Siemens also got the contract to connect the offshore wind farm to the national grid by supplying components of the offshore substation platform.
Aceda got the contract for design and delivery of turnkey integrated engineering solutions for the array cables, while Smulders delivered 75 foundations for the wind farm.
SMIT Transport helped in transporting the wind turbine foundations of the wind farm project.
RES provided development, construction, and engineering support for the wind farm project.
HiDef Aerial Surveying Limited was hired for delivering high resolution digital video aerial survey services for the project.
Associated British Ports’ (ABP) Port of Hull was selected as one of the logistics bases for the wind farm.
The expansion of the East Coast Hub of the project was completed by construction firm Hobson & Porter.
In 2015, ZephIR Lidar installed a turbine-mounted ZephIR DM wind lidar on the 270 MW Lincs Offshore Wind Farm to help in identifying potential production improvement opportunities.
Project timeline
2004- Centrica acquired the Crown Estate lease to develop Lincs wind farm.
October 2008- Centrica gained government consent for the wind farm.
October 2009- the final investment decision was taken.
April 2010- Onshore construction began.
March 2011- Offshore construction commenced.
April 2012- The wind farm was connected to the national grid.
August 2012- the project produced first power.
August 2013- Lincs wind farm was inaugurated.
