Wind farm repowering implementation: financing, execution design and construction management
Wind farm repowering: we support you from project financing through execution design and construction management to commissioning.
With technical due diligence, precise wind and yield assessments and clear cost plans, we create a strong basis for financing your wind farm repowering project. You can read more in our technical due diligence for wind farms, the review report on wind potential and yield and the investment and operating cost plan. Financing banks and investors want to understand how the yield of the new turbines is made up and how much uncertainty it carries. In repowering, existing infrastructure such as access roads, cable routes and the grid connection can also be reused. What of it is actually fit for purpose should be checked before the financing decision. Financing also raises the question of funding, see handling of funding applications.
Our construction team translates permits into construction drawings ready for implementation by means of practical execution design, which we also use for your tenders. In the execution design, foundations, crane hardstandings, roads and cable routes are defined so that they suit the selected turbines. Foundations must be dimensioned for extreme loads and the ground conditions at the site; where the turbines are larger than the existing ones, loads and dimensions change considerably. We then take comprehensive care of construction management and steer your project as a whole through to completion, from trade coordination to quality and safety monitoring. Site supervision on site is provided by local building supervision. The more clearly scope, interfaces and deadlines are described in the execution design, the more comparable the bids in the tender. Difficult ground, peat soils or poor access roads prolong and complicate construction. Rotor blades and tower sections are delivered by heavy-haul transport, and in alpine locations narrow roads are often a bottleneck.
Implementing a wind farm repowering project follows a logic and timing of its own. Typically the old turbines are dismantled, followed by foundations, cable work and erection of the new turbines; the sequence is planned project-specifically. In addition come transports of large components, crane operations and work on the grid connection. Grid work in particular is a classic scheduling risk because it depends on the grid operator. Anyone who coordinates dismantling, new construction and grid work cleanly shortens the downtime of the site. Commissioning is also followed by a ramp-up phase in which the availability of the new turbines first stabilises.
Central coordination, strict control of standards and safety requirements and economic-technical optimisation are our benchmarks. Everything from a single source: our experts combine all relevant disciplines. The technical foundation is laid by repowering planning; after commissioning comes operations management for repowering. Once construction is complete, acceptance inspections and clean documentation are part of the job, so that the wind farm passes seamlessly into operation. The experience of the construction phase thus feeds into later operations management.
