Abstract
In January 2007 the offshore windfarm Egmond aan Zee went into operation. This first Dutch offshore windfarm is a government demonstration project, that is developed, owned and operated by NoordzeeWind, a joint venture of Shell and Nuon. The windfarm comprises 36 Vestas V90 3 MW wind turbines, a 115 meter tall offshore meteorological mast, and an onshore transformer substation.
All turbines have become operational, and with just over 330 GWh in the year 2007 delivered enough electricity for approximately 100,000 homes to the Dutch grid. Challenges arose due to technical problems with the gearboxes, which are similar to those reported on comparable windfarms elsewhere. A maintenance campaign has been started to contain the problem, and this has been successful in keeping the problem under control.
There were no injuries or incidents to report. As of the end of the year, the plant had worked the full year (365 days) without any injury or incident. Total man-hours spent at site was over 60,000 for the year.
An extensive monitoring programme is being carried out to better understand the behaviour of the windfarm and its effects on the environment. This report describes the general performance of the windfarm in the first operating year 2007, and summarizes the results of the monitoring program so far. This report is itself part of the monitoring programme. Further results of the monitoring programme will be published separately.