Race Bank Offshore Wind Farm Opens

Race Bank, a new offshore wind farm capable of powering over half a million U.K. homes, officiallyl commenced operation on Wednesday.

The wind farm covers a total area of 75 square kilometers and is located about 17 miles off the North Norfolk coast. It is capable of generating 573MW of green electricity from its 91 Siemens Gamesa 6MW wind turbines. Many of these turbines have the first blades to be manufactured at the Siemens Gamesa blade factory in Hull. 

The farm is operated from Ørsted’s East Coast Hub in Grimsby, the U.K.’s largest offshore wind operations and maintenance base. The project features a new way of carrying out offshore maintenance, using a Service Operation Vessel that remains offshore with technicians working shifts of 14 days on and 14 days off.

Race Bank is owned by Ørsted (50 percent), Macquarie European Infrastructure Fund 5 (25 percent), Sumitomo Corporation (12.5 percent) and funds advised by the Green Investment Group, Arjun Infrastructure Partners and Gravis Capital Management (12.5 percent).

Race Bank becomes the 10th U.K. offshore wind farm that Ørsted either owns and partly owns, and together these projects provide over 3,000 MW of green energy – enough to power 2.7 million U.K. homes. Ørsted has installed more than 1,200 offshore wind turbines with a total capacity of approx 4.4GW and has a further 4.5GW under construction.