Vattenfall’s new wind farm supplies 50,000 homes with electricity
Stor-Rotliden, a wind farm north of Fredrika in Åsele municipality, Sweden, has now been completed. Its forty wind power turbines are expected to generate 240 GWh annually, which corresponds to supplying 50,000 homes with electricity. Wind power is a prioritized sector for Vattenfall. The company plans to invest SEK 26 billion in new wind farms up to 2015.
The construction of Stor-Rotliden provided some hundred jobs for about a year. Now as the wind farm has been completed, nine permanent employees from the local area will assure its operation and maintenance. Stor-Rotliden cost SEK 1.5 billion to build.
“With Stor-Rotliden, which is Vattenfall’s largest onshore wind farm, we continue to increase our share of renewable electricity generation. Wind power is a priority for Vattenfall, and the company will invest SEK 26 billion in this sector up to 2015”, said Øystein Løseth, President and CEO of Vattenfall, on the occasion of the inauguration of Stor-Rotliden.
Maud Olofsson, Minister for Enterprise and Energy, inaugurated the wind farm, which is Sweden’s second largest on shore. When fully operational, it will supply a twentieth of the wind power electricity currently generated by Vattenfall.
Vattenfall is Sweden’s largest wind power supplier and owns several wind farms, both onshore and offshore, in Sweden and elsewhere in Europe. Thanet, the world’s largest offshore wind farm located off England’s south-eastern coast, was inaugurated in September last year. It is expected to supply 300,000 British homes with electricity.
Earlier this August, Vattenfall started operating the Ormonde wind farm in the Irish Sea, which supplies electricity to 100,000 British homes. Vattenfall also runs Östra Herrestad, outside the port of Simrishamn, which supplies electricity to 11,000 Swedish homes. The company plans to build more offshore wind farms. The construction of DanTysk in the North Sea off Germany starts next year. It will supply almost 300,000 German homes with power and represents an investment of SEK 10 billion, half of it from Vattenfall.
Vattenfall’s wind power assets generate a total of about 3.7 TWh, which is equivalent to supplying almost 750,000 Swedish homes.
Facts about Stor-Rotliden:- Construction period: Less than 18 months to get all turbines in full production
- Main contractors: Peab, Siemens and Vestas
- Number of turbines: 40 Vestas V90
- Total height: 140 metres to the blade tip (tower height 95 metres and rotor diameter 90 metres)
- Weight: Each wind turbine weighs 303 tonnes and each foundation about 1,100 tonnes
- Installed capacity: 78 MW
- Estimated generating capacity: 240 GWh