Swedish renewables developer Eolus and compatriot Vingkraft have submitted a permit application to construct the Blekinge Offshore wind farm.
The Blekinge Offshore project is located within the Karlshamn and Sölvesborg municipalities and will have a maximum of 70 wind turbines which will be 330 meters tall. The production is expected to be around 4.3 TWh annually with an installed capacity of 1GW. The turbines will have gravity-based bottom-fixed foundations with a construction start date set in 2027.
However, this is not the first time the Blekinge Offshore project got to the permit application phase. In 2016, the Swedish government rejected an earlier application, citing the interests of the Swedish Armed Forces. The wind farm, if constructed under the initial application, would encroach on a marine training area and the distance between the wind turbines was considered too small.
Originally, the project was supposed to be much larger – up to 2,5GW, with an annual production of 7-8 TWh. This was supposed to plug the energy supply loss created by the decommissioning of two reactors in the Barsebäck nuclear power plant.
The new project plan, now eleven kilometres from the mainland, was developed with 40% less area, 90% fewer turbines, and two kilometres between each turbine – four times the distance than in the previous project. Even local fishermen endorsed the project by stating that it becomes a very good nursery habitat for fish that like to hide by the turbine foundations.
The developers also offered the Swedish Armed Forces an extended area for marine exercises in Hanö Bay. The expansion of 770 sq km corresponds to an area five times larger than the Blekinge Offshore project.
