Full commissioning of EnBW's Baltic 2 offshore project in the Baltic Sea will not happen before 2014, Windpower Offshore has learned. The project was originally expected to be online by the end of 2013. The delay is due to having to replan the foundations due to new standards set by the permitting authority Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie (BSH), an EnBW spokeswoman said.
Construction of the 80 foundations will now begin in January 2013. A consortium of Hochtief Solutions, Geosea and Nordsee Nassbagger is responsible for their design, construction and installation. In a provisional forecast, foundation installation at sea could begin at the start of Q3 2013, the spokeswoman said.
An extension to the construction permit granted by the BSH in May 2012 explained that EnBW had had problems finding a suitable onshore site for foundation pile loading tests that had comparable chalk geological structures to those at the offshore site.
Without the results of these tests, the basic design could not be completed, it said. The test programme, originally due for completion in January 2011 could not be finished until January 2012.
The Baltic 2 scheduling looks likely to represent a reversal of EnBW's Baltic 1 offshore project. This had to wait about five months before cable connection to the onshore network, the responsibility of 50Hertz, was completed.
The cable link to shore for Baltic 2, via a cable link to Baltic 1, is slated to come online in late 2013 or early 2014 already, a 50 Hertz spokesman said earlier this week. This could be several months before EnBW is ready to commission Baltic 2.
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