The Barrow offshore wind farm (BOWF) located in the East Irish Sea near Barrow-in-Furness UK consists of 30 wind turbines with a total capacity of 90MW. Power is generated at 44kV and transmitted via subsea cables to an onshore substation. BOWF was among the first large offshore wind farms in the UK and faced risks associated with its electrical infrastructure and environmental impacts. However, it has been largely successful in delivering renewable energy as planned and establishing offshore substations, and its performance exceeds the average of other early UK offshore wind farms.

1. Barrow Offshore Wind Farm
Student ID: 9118077
Coursework submitted as part of
MACE22491 Project Management
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering
University of Manchester

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Section 1 Goal and Scope
The Barrow offshore wind farm (BOWF) is one of the first offshore wind farms built in
the United Kingdom, it is located in the East Irish Sea near Barrow-in-Furness north-west of
the UK (Centrica, 2003). The 10km2
wind farm, consists of 30 wind turbines each with a
production capability of 3MW adding up to a nameplate capacity of 90MW (BERR, 2007).
Turbines are manufactured by Vestas WS, turbine hub height is 75m, rotor diameter is 90m
and the farm uses monopile foundation (Centrica Energy, 2014). Power is generated at 44kV
which is stepped up to 132kV at an offshore substation before being redirected to an
onshore substation via 27km of subsea cables where it enters the national grid (OFGEM,
2009). Annual production of the farm was estimated to be 305GW/h powering 65,000
households annually (Warwick Energy, 2002). BOWF was designed to operate for 20 years
reducing CO2 emissions by 4 million tonnes over its lifetime (Centrica, 2006).
In 2001, a planning application with an estimated budget of £100 million was made
by Warwick Offshore Wind Ltd. and approvals were granted in March 2003 (Centrica, 2003).
In September 2003, Warwick Offshore Wind Ltd. was acquired by Centrica Ltd., DONG
Energy (DE) and Statkraft Energy, but is now a 50-50 joint venture between Centrica and DE
under Barrow Offshore Wind Ltd. (Ernst & Young, 2011). The commissioning date
announced was 20 November 2005 but the actual commissioning date when first power was
generated was delayed by 6 months due to difficulties in monopile installation (DECC, 2008).
The farm was operated by Vestas for the first five years of its lifetime; however DE became
responsible for operations and maintenance from 2012 onwards. (Vestas, 2004).
Section 2 Strategy and Rationale
The need for carbon-free energy has become increasingly recognized by
governments around the world in the past two decades. The UK government set a target to
obtain 15% of its energy from renewable resources by 2020. The UK has Europe’s strongest
technical offshore wind power potential reaching approximately 5000 TWh in 2030 based on
wind speed data (EEA, 2009) and capital investment towards offshore wind power is
expected to exceed £36 billion towards offshore energy by 2020 (RAB, 2008). Supporting
the government’s 2020 vision and in an attempt to exploit this massive potential, the Crown
Estate (owner of the seabed) began leasing areas of the seabed for the development of
offshore wind farms, the first round of leasing started in December 2000 and successful
applicants began technical and environmental studies. Among those who provided
successful applications was Warwick Ltd. which prepared the initial proposal for Barrow
offshore wind farm.
Comparing DONG Energy’s mission to the government’s green energy aspirations, it
was found that DONG Energy’s mission is to sustain market leadership and quadruple
offshore power capacity whilst creating maximum financial value whereas the government
plans to reach a capacity of 18 GW in 2020 compared to the UK’s current operational
offshore capacity of 3.653MW (DECC, 2012). This created a win – win situation for both
parties, and enabled close cooperation throughout the earlier stages of development, the
project was also able to benefit from financial support mechanisms and incentives, reduced
taxes and received £10M in grants from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) within
the ‘Offshore wind capital grants scheme’ (BERR, 2007). The aforementioned information is
evidence that the highly supportive business environment provided by the government
significantly contributed to the overall success of the project.
Section 3 Management of Risk
The electrical infrastructure of BOWF can be considered a milestone as Barrow was
the first offshore wind farm where an offshore high voltage substation was required in the UK.
This brought up concerns because the integration of relatively large wind farms into electric
grids was still a challenge at the time of construction and only three offshore substations
were operational at that period (Yao & Liangzhong, 2010). In 2003, there were no

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comparable offshore electrical installations to provide any guidance on the design of the
electrical infrastructure (Grainger & Jenkins, 2002). Evidently, the risk associated with
installing the substation would be significantly high and would therefore require very careful
monitoring as inadequately designed electrical systems can result in revenue losses of as
much as €7 million in the lifetime of a wind farm (Pechey et al, 2005). AREVA T&D won the
contract to design the 12M€ substation and Mott MacDonald was appointed to coordinate
the equipment design to the design of the platform on which it will be installed. Transmission
Assets at BOWF were acquired by TC Barrow OFTO Ltd. in 2011 via OFGEM (electricity
market regulator) in accordance with regulations requiring offshore wind farm owners to
divest transmission assets to offshore transmission owners (OFTO) (KPMG, 2012) therefore
the risk associated with the substation (part of transmission assets) was transferred to TC
Barrow OFTO Ltd. upon the transfer of ownership of the transmission assets.
Since very little was known about the effects of offshore wind farms on the
environment, the wind farm had to comply with the conditions of the Food and Environmental
Protection Act (FEPA). The environmental impact of the wind farm during the construction
phase and after during operation had to be identified. Since the wind farm uses the monopile
foundation, pile driving operations had to take place; this resulted in the generation of
underwater noise which was found to affect marine animals within 25km of the farm causing
traumatic hearing loss and accumulated hearing damage from Noise Dose (Nedwell et al,
2003). The perceived level of noise for different marine species was measured and
comparisons have been made between the numbers of the five most abundant marine
species (fish populations) caught during the survey programme before and after construction
of the farm (BOW,2007). Moreover, post-construction monitoring had to be undertaken, and
studies were undertaken to investigate the effect of electromagnetic fields on fish
populations, scour, monopile epifauna (aquatic animals living on the seabed/ submerged
bodies) and birds (BOW, 2007). Surveys and appropriate monitoring methods were
employed, the effect of the presence of the wind farm on each species was determined and
conclusions were drawn accordingly indicating if any further action should be taken. No
alarming results were found and further surveys have been scheduled to ensure compliance
with FEPA throughout the lifetime of the farm.
Section 4 Conclusions: evaluation of project success
Although the project may have faced some setbacks in its earlier years delivering
only 65% of the expected electric output, I believe that BOWF can be regarded as a
milestone in the development of offshore wind farms in the UK despite being among the first
relatively large offshore wind farms in the region. The project continues to deliver carbon-
free energy to 65,000 homes annually as promised (Centrica Energy, 2014). BOWF has
been able to achieve 87% of the actual annual production target in 2008 (DECC, 2008) with
a capacity factor of 36.7% in 2008 (DECC, 2008) and 38.19 % in 2012 (LORC, 2012)
compared to a 29.5% capacity factor average for all Round 1 wind farms (Crabtree, 2012).
Judging its performance by comparing BOWF to Round 1 wind farms would verify that
BOWF can be regarded as successful in terms of performance.
The project also successfully served Centrica and DE’s ambitions to become “a
major wind power player in Northern Europe” as stated by BOW Chairman and DE
Executive VP Hans Jørgen Rasmusen (Centrica, 2013). BOWF is considered among the
earliest successful projects on the government’s “2020 vision” roadmap and complements
parallel activity by other European governments in the offshore wind sector.
Reviewing the risks and challenges associated with BOWF’s unconventional
electrical facilities, I was led to believe that the successful incorporation of the UK’s first
offshore high voltage substation in BOWF is a certainly a remarkable accomplishment that
directly led to establishing offshore substations as an achievable alternative to conventional
electrical infrastructures contributing to the technological development of offshore wind
sector in the UK and on an international scale.

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