About the turbines

The turbines for Phase One will have a capacity of 3.6MW each. They’ll be manufactured by Siemens Wind Power and will be fitted with Siemens’ new 120m rotor. Each turbine will have a hub height of 87m above sea level. The turbines will each have three blades and will be painted grey.

The turbines will start generating electricity when wind speeds reach 3 metres per second (m/s) or around 7mph. They’ll achieve full power from 13m/s (around 29mph). For safety reasons, the turbines will start shutting down if the wind speed becomes greater than 25m/s – equivalent to a force 9 gale.

Installing the turbines

The turbines installed by Sea Worker are shipped to the UK by barge from Esbjerg in Denmark. They’re then transferred to Sea Worker and taken to the London Array site. MPI Discovery collects six turbines directly from Esjberg before returning to the London Array site to install them.

Each turbine tower is carefully lifted into place and bolted onto its transition piece. We then install each turbine’s hub and nacelle, which is the housing that contains its main parts such as the gearbox, generator and controls. Finally, the three turbine blades are mounted, one at a time, in a horizontal position.

Navigation lights and markings are installed on some of the turbines to alert passing ships and aircraft to the wind farm’s presence. To help protect smaller boats that may sail near the wind farm, the tip of each wind turbine blade will always be at least 22m above the maximum sea height at high tide, even at its lowest position.