Hvide Sande Sustainability Festival 2023 opens up the opportunity to get closer to Danish offshore wind. Vattenfall is holding an open house on October 13th and 14th in the operational buildings for Vesterhav Nord and Syd in Hvide Sande.
It is a building that was inaugurated last summer. The Vesterhav Nord and Syd wind farm is currently being prepared for commissioning at the end of 2023, and civil engineer Merete Bertelsen has been involved from the planning phase. She specializes in industrial environmental engineering. And sustainability is widely considered when a wind farm like Vesterhav Nord and Syd is being planned. One thing in particular is in focus.
- We are working to produce electricity with the least possible CO2 emissions. Here we look at the entire lifespan of the wind farm, explains Merete Bertelsen and gives a very concrete example of how good wind farms like Vesterhav Nord and Syd, with a total of 41 8.4 MW Siemens Gamesa turbines, are for CO2 emissions.
- Siemens Gamesa has calculated that it takes six to seven months to produce the energy that has been used to produce the turbines, set them up and keep them in operation throughout their lifespan, along with decommissioning at the end.
Despite the good climate accounting, work has been done to reduce the climate footprint from the planning phase.
- You look at everything that is used, such as the steel. But you start with the blades, because the rest of the turbine has to be adapted to the blades. We look around the entire process to see where there is something to be done. One place could be if half of the steel in the turbine is low-emission steel, explains Merete Bertelsen about the steel that is popularly called green steel. This is something that will be relevant for future wind farms.
With green steel, less CO2 is emitted throughout the entire production chain. This applies right from the extraction of the iron ore in the mine and through the production itself. However, there is another good option to reduce emissions from steel consumption.
- You can recycle steel that has been remelted. This saves part of the steelmaking process, which uses coal, explains Merete Bertelsen.
Transport to the wind farm
The transport of service technicians to and from the wind farm is done with crew transport vessels (CTVs). They will sail on marine oil from the beginning, but preparations have already been made for this to change.
- We have made a two-year contract with the CTVs, where they use marine oil, so that we can switch to green fuel or a hybrid solution more quickly. It is a place where we can quickly turn up the CO2 emissions, says Merete Bertelsen about a near future where green methanol, ammonia or perhaps hydrogen could be the solutions.
Vattenfall also uses drones to minimize the number of service visits to the individual turbines. This is already helping to reduce the number of service visits.
Greener and greener
Some might say that Vattenfall is already doing enough for the environment with its wind farms, but the ambition is higher.
- It is incredibly important that we make an effort, even though we produce renewable energy. The same is true with sustainability solutions. That is our reason for existing in the future, says Merete Bertelsen.
And it is something she also feels on a personal level.
- It is important to work on something that reduces climate emissions. There is a certain respect for this work, says the engineer.
But it doesn't stop at reducing emissions, because Vattenfall is also involved in a project WIN@sea about coexistence between turbines and nature. Projects are being created in collaboration with DTU, Aarhus University, the University of Copenhagen, the Kattegat Centre and Kerteminde Seafarm.
- It's about promoting sustainable foods such as mussels and seaweed. The seaweed is grown between the wind turbines at Kriegers Flak in 250-750 meter long lines underwater. They can then be hoisted up and harvested, she explains.
But it doesn't just stop with the fauna's coexistence with the wind turbines, because with Vesterhav Nord and Syd, everything possible is done to reduce any nuisance from the wind turbines.
- Each turbine has an aircraft warning light that lights up white during the day and red at night. We have had a radar system made on Vesterhav Nord and Syd so that it only turns on when there are aircraft nearby. This is for the sake of both people and birds. At the same time, the turbines have position lights that we are not allowed to turn off. But there we reduced the light towards the coast to only be able to illuminate two nautical miles. Out to sea it is brighter, here it shines five nautical miles, says Merete Bertelsen.
A nautical mile is equivalent to almost 1.9 km.
Everyone is welcome to the open house in Hvide Sande
Merete Bertelsen and her colleagues will answer questions about sustainability and the Vesterhav Nord og Syd wind farm. And everyone is welcome.
- We expect to see both locals and summer house owners. And we also think that there will be quite a few tourists, because we know that the Germans are very interested in wind turbines, says Merete Bertelsen, who is clearly looking forward to the information part of her work.
Vattenfall is holding an open house on October 13th and 14th, and it will take place both days between 10 am and 3 pm. It is at Fabriksvej 27 in Hvide Sande.
Updated version 13.10.23. at 8:49 am.
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