DONG Energy Wants Giant Vestas Turbines For UK Wind Farm

DONG Energy, one of the world's leaders in offshore wind farms, said it wants to use Vestas Wind Systems' giant V164 turbines for the Burbo Bank Extension Offshore Wind Farm off the English west coast.

"The performance of the 8 megawatt turbine from Vestas is very promising. I see this as a very concrete step towards reducing the cost of electricity from offshore wind," Samuel Leupold, Executive Vice President in DONG Energy, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The selection of the turbines was not yet official, but the endorsement boosted Vestas shares by 1.0 percent while the Danish benchmark index was down 0.6 percent around 1200 GMT.

If chosen, it would be the first order for the V164. The new 8-MW turbines can supply electricity for 7,500 average European households, and are expected to help customers deploy fewer units and lower maintenance costs once serial production begins in 2015..

Vestas' current most powerful wind turbine has a capacity of 3.3 MW. With a 140-meter tower, the new turbine has a tip height of 220 meters and a sweep area of more than 21,000 square meters, equal to three football pitches.

Vestas in September agreed to a joint venture with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to step up investment in offshore wind turbines. The Japanese company promised to provide up to 300 million euros into the project.

"DONG Energy's choice of the V164 turbine is exactly the rubber-stamp of the future technology that the new Vestas-Mitsubishi joint venture needed," Sydbank analyst Jacob Pedersen said in a note to clients.

Pedersen noted that DONG Energy accounted for almost half of the installed offshore wind capacity worldwide in 2013.

The new wind farm, with an expected maximum capacity of 258 megawatt (MW), is planned to be built next to the Burbo Bank Offshore Wind Farm from the second half of 2016.