The technology we use in our offshore wind farms today would have been almost unimaginable when we built the world’s first offshore wind farm in Vindeby in 1991.
Each of our largest 11 MW turbines with a rotor diameter of 200 metres produces more than twice as much energy as all 11 of Vindeby’s turbines combined. In just one rotation of their blades, they can produce enough power to cover a typical British household’s power consumption for nearly 40 hours.
Innovation at every stage
But technological progress and wind energy innovation go beyond our suppliers’ component and wind turbine innovations. It’s also about Ørsted as a developer constantly improving installation methods, foundation designs, logistics and digitalisation in the offshore wind industry.
All these things combined make possible the construction of offshore wind farms on an unprecedented scale – wind farms like Borssele 1 & 2 in the Netherlands or Hornsea 2 in the UK, which will supply clean electricity to millions of households and businesses for years to come.
Meet the people who helped build the world's first offshore wind farm in 1991
Reducing offshore costs
In 2012, we set an ambitious target of reaching a price of 100 EUR per MWh in new offshore wind projects awarded by 2020. In close cooperation with our suppliers, we reached this goal four years ahead of time in 2016.
The cost of offshore wind energy has continued to decrease, and today offshore wind energy is cheaper per MWh than energy generated by newly-built fossil fuel power stations in northwest Europe.
