Renewable

January 26 (Renewables Now) - Turbine installation at the 353-MW Blakliden Fabodberget wind farm site in northern Sweden has been finalised, and the project is now approaching the finish line, its co-owner said on Wednesday.

The last of the wind farm’s 84 turbines will be hooked to the grid soon, after which Blakliden Fabodberget will undergo trials, Swedish state-owned utility Vattenfall AB announced.

Vattenfall owns 30% in the project, while the remaining shareholding is split between Danish wind turbine maker Vestas Wind Systems A/S (CPH:VWS) and infrastructure investment platform AIP Management.

Blakliden Fabodberget is Vattenfall’s largest onshore wind farm, and its full assembly comes after four years of construction as works on site had to stop during winter months due to punishing weather conditions.

"For the first three years, we were doing the groundwork for the installation and operation of the turbines in the wind farm,” said Kristoffer Arnqvist, construction project manager.

Plenty of snow and temperatures reaching as low as -30 degrees Celsius (-22 F) made work difficult on site, Arnqvist adds.

In 2020, the five-month winter break coincided with the outbreak of the coronavirus, which caused some challenges with delivery schedules but did not frustrate the plan to have the project completed in 2022, Vattenfall said at the time.

According to the latest update, after the trial period, the Blakliden Fabodberget wind farm will go into commercial operation later this year. Once live, it will be capable of generating 1.1 TWh per year, or enough to meet consumption needs of around 220,000 Swedish households.

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