Siemens Energy has been awarded a contract by Vattenfall for wind turbines and servicing for the Sandbank offshore wind farm in Germany.

Under the contract, Siemens will supply 72 Model SWT-4.0-130 wind turbines and will also perform maintenance services on the Sandbank installations for an initial period of five years.

The project is being built 90km west of the island of Sylt in water depths between 25m and 37m, within the exclusive economic zone off the German North Sea coast.

A pioneering service plan will generate synergy from its close vicinity to the DanTysk offshore wind farm, utilising joint operations to drive down the maintenance costs of both projects.

Service operations will focus on a service operation vessel (SOV) specially designed for these deployments.

Following project commissioning, this specialised ship, fitted with living accommodations for technicians and a workshop equipped with spare parts, will take up a position between the two wind farms.

Located 20km away from the Sandbank offshore wind farm, the DanTysk wind farm is in an advanced stage of construction and is equipped with Siemens wind turbines of the G4 product platform.

Siemens claims that the SWT-4.0-130 wind turbines ordered for the project represent the latest generation of the Siemens G4 platform wind turbines.

Construction work is scheduled to commence in 2015 and commissioning will take place at the end of 2016.

Siemens Energy’s Wind Power Division CEO Markus Tacke said: “We are very pleased to be joining forces and pooling our shared experience again with Vattenfall to implement another major offshore project.

“Thanks to Vattenfall’s expertise in project construction and operation, and Siemens’ innovative technology and service prowess, Sandbank will boldly demonstrate just how far we’ve come in reducing the costs of offshore wind power.”

Vattenfall’s continental / UK region head of the Renewables Business Unit Gunnar Groebler said: “The Sandbank project is further testament to Vattenfall’s strategy of consistently focusing our growth efforts on the expansion of renewable energy.

“We know how to work offshore and we see it as a significant building block in the success of the energy transition in Germany. We are therefore delighted to have Siemens as an experienced partner for the building of the wind turbines.”