When the first V164 turbine starts up at Britain’s Burbo Bank Extension (BBE) offshore wind farm early next year, it will mark the end of a journey embarked on more than five years ago by Vestas – and the beginning of another as its flagship 8MW machine moves into commercial roll-out in the wild waters off Northern Europe.

A lot has happened since the Danish company unveiled the design it dubbed the “new ruler of the seas” in 2011, in a glass-walled ballroom on the bank of the Thames overlooking the London Eye.

It forged a joint venture with Japanese giant Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to create offshore turbine maker MHI Vestas; the V164 was scaled up from 7MW to 8MW; and rival OEMs, including America’s Clipper, South Korea’s Samsung and France’s Alstom, either retreated from the offshore wind business or were swallowed up through M&A.

The constant throughout has been the swelling demand of a market that has underwritten the multi-billion-euro capital spend necessary to grid-connect almost 12GW of offshore plant to date off Europe, and is on course to add the same again by the turn of the decade.

And then there are the emerging frontier plays in the US and East Asia.Now, having battled through the wider industrial storms that buffeted the sector in recent years, MHI Vestas is one of the happy few.

With the world’s mightiest turbine and a fat order book — from BBE, Blyth and Aberdeen Bay in the UK, Horns Rev 3 off Denmark and Borkum Riffgrund 2 and Deutsche Bucht off Germany — the OEM will soon reap the rewards of its ambitious, long-game strategy.“It’s been an interesting voyage so far, to say the least,”

MHI Vestas chief executive Jens Tommerup tells Recharge. “With Burbo Bank Extension coming into commissioning and our second project off Germany [Deutsche Bucht] it bears out our early-stage prioritisation of the European markets on our ability to balance the cost-of-energy targets with local manufacturing and supply-chain presence.

“The European market continues to be our main focus; this is where we have been successful. We have to carry all the best practices forward here first and then carry them out to new markets, adapting as we go. For our future international ambitions, the base we have established in Europe is very important.”

This is doubly true, given that the exhaustively tested turbine it is banking on is facing bona fide offshore operations for the first time. Its follow-on installations in British waters will, coincidentally, include two wind farms originally scoped out as technology proving grounds — 99.9MW Blyth and 92.4MW Aberdeen Bay — which the UK Crown Estate had cordoned off as test sites to get the levelised cost of energy (LCoE) down below €100 ($110) per MWh.

For Blyth, being developed by France’s EDF Energy, five of a total of 15 “optimised” 8.3MW versions of the V164s are to be installed next year, mounted on innovative concrete gravity base foundations in 40 metres of water, with power travelling via high-voltage 66kV cables to shore.

At Vattenfall’s Aberdeen Bay — the wind farm formerly known as the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre, which was entangled in a long-running legal battle with Donald Trump — 11 V164s will be mated with suction-bucket jackets for installation in water depths of 20-30 metres.

“We have a very good collaboration with the developers [of these wind farms] and the UK authorities to drive through the use of new technologies,” says Tommerup.

“Getting to under €100/MWh is important [as an industry LCoE milestone] and that it is being done in the world’s largest offshore market is important too — I think [these projects represent] the right balance between commercial interest and technology innovation.”

Finding that balance will be a task at the heart of Dong Energy’s 258MW BBE project, where 32 of the V164s are now being erected by contractor A2Sea, with expectations the wind farm will be fully powered up next year.

“There have been so many ‘firsts’ already on Burbo and there are so many learnings already being brought forward through the installation process,” says Tommerup. “You have to be humble when you bring a new turbine platform to the market because we know from our experience and the experience of our competitors that it is a big challenge.”

MHI Vestas will soon be translating lessons learnt from installing and operating the V164 off Britain to the German, Danish and Belgian markets. In September, the OEM landed a key, “consolidation” order from the Highland Group to deliver 8MW machines for the 252MW Deutsche Bucht project in the German North Sea.

The preferred supplier deal has added significance for MHI Vestas not only as it is its second off Germany, but also because it is in arch-rival Siemens’ traditional stamping ground.“We believe in the German market, we are confident looking at the German market, we feel it fits well with our technology,” states Tommerup.

“It started with [Dong Energy’s] Borkum Riffgrund 2 [where MHI Vestas will deliver 56 of its V164s], which gave us insight and understanding as to the requirements of the German market. We feel we are well positioned for future orders there.”

Adding to its factory workload, MHI Vestas also has pending deals from the Eneco-Elicio consortium for its 370MW Norther project off Belgium — which promises to be the country’s largest offshore wind plant by far — and an order for Vattenfall’s 400MW Horns Rev 3 in its home patch off Denmark.

Though much continues to be made of the role played by recent auctions in driving down the LCoE of offshore wind, particularly off Denmark and the Netherlands, it is the 40% cost reduction engineered over the past three years by technology improvements that has been key in making offshore wind competitive with conventional power sources.

“We [among offshore turbine makers] have brought competition to the market by developing the largest turbines that make [the prices of] some of these bids possible,” says Tommerup. “And, I feel, the whole industry still has a lot to learn in how to get quality and further cost reductions out of these auctions. To be sure, the governments are learning too — we are all in a learning phase. Borssele 3&4 on track to deliver lowest offshore wind price

“Technical pre-qualifications are something many think should be included [in future auctions] as a rule. There are, of course, adjustments needed to be made by governments to get the most well-functioning system possible.

“The very low prices we’ve seen on Borssele and elsewhere are certainly a challenge to the industry, but we see them positively: we have overtaken nuclear [in LCoE] and we are on the way to overtaking gas. All this is good insofar as it drives more volume into the offshore wind business.”

Tommerup is optimistic about the European offshore wind build-out, but realistic in conceding, as WindEurope chief Giles Dickson remarked recently, that “the current pipeline of projects is not enough, and the commitments of EU member states made for beyond 2020 fall well short of what’s needed” to support a healthy domestic offshore wind industry.

For this reason, MHI Vestas continues to look to future potential in the US and Asia, as Europe’s current 90% share of global offshore capacity begins to be eaten into by new markets. MHI Vestas has stuck a toe in the water in the US via a deal on the Icebreaker pilot project in Lake Erie with project owner Fred Olsen. The 20.7MW development, which could begin construction as early as 2018 using V112-3.3MW turbines atop suction-bucket foundations, would be the first freshwater wind farm in North America.

“Icebreaker is a small beginning but an important one as it will give us real insights into the market — and we are very happy we are involved in what will be the second commercial offshore project in the US [after 30MW Block Island],” says Tommerup.

“Europe is where we are focused though, and where we continue to develop best practice with everyone from suppliers to pre-assembly [facilities] to [installation] vessel owners, but, it should be said, we are actively engaged in discussions in the US and Asia and have been for some time.

“If you look at the journey from the prototypes to the first commercial turbines, we have to say we are pleased and proud of what we have achieved. There are huge opportunities ahead.”

The story of the V164