DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, has officially opened what is claimed to be the world’s only wind farm to be built amid a war. The Tyligulska wind farm is located just 100 km from the frontline in the southern region of Mykolaiv, Ukraine. Under constant threat of missile strikes following the Russian invasion, staff worked in bullet proof vests and spent over 300 hours in bomb shelters during construction.

Phase 1 of the wind farm development comprises 19 turbines with an installed capacity of 114 MW, generating up to 390,000 kWh, enough to power 200,000 households a year.

Phase 2 will see the addition of up to 64 turbines to raise the potential output to 500 MW, making Tyligulska the largest wind farm in Eastern Europe, according to DTEK.

The energy company plans to expand Tyligulska as part of its broader strategy to achieve net zero emissions by 2040 and help Ukraine become a clean energy exporter to the European Union. However, plans are dependent on DTEK securing an additional $450mn in funding, from both foreign investors and state-backed international financial institutions. Phase 1 of the project cost $200mn to build.

Commenting on Tyligulska’s official opening, DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko said: ‘The Tyligulska wind farm is a symbol of Ukraine’s resistance to Russian attempts to freeze Ukraine into submission. With projects like Tyligulska, we can build Ukraine back greener and cleaner and become a key partner in Europe’s energy future. By developing an infrastructure based on distributed rather centralised generation, we are creating an energy supply that is more resilient and stable.’

According to DTEK, its energy facilities have been targeted 250 times by Russian forces to date, with its thermal power plants coming under attack at least 30 times since September 2022. Some 90% of Ukraine’s wind and 50% of its solar generation infrastructure remains in occupied regions of the country.

World first for China
Looking further afield, CNOOC recently announced that a deepsea floating wind demonstration project located close to the Wenchang oil fields in the western part of the South China Sea has been successfully connected to the grid for power generation.

It is claimed to be the world’s first semi-submersible ‘double hundred’ deepsea floating wind project – located more than 100 km offshore and in a water depth of over 100 metres.

According to CNOOC, the project’s main production facility, Haiyou Guanlan, is China’s first deepsea floating wind power platform to supply power to an offshore oil field ‘under the most challenging oceanic conditions’. With an installed capacity of 7.25 MW, the platform can produce up to 22mn kWh of electricity, equivalent to saving nearly 10mn m³ of natural gas and reducing CO₂ emissions by 22,000 t/y, reports the company, which owns a 100% equity interest in the demonstration project.

Work begins on Finnish wind farms
Meanwhile, in Finland, Neoen (80%) and Prokon (20%) report that construction has begun on two wind farms – Storbötet (105.4 MW) and Lumivaara (55.8 MW) – which are due to be operational in 2025.

Both projects are underpinned by 10-year power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Equinix, covering 60% of the energy generated by Storbötet and 80% of the energy generated by Lumivaara.

Storbötet and Lumivaara are Neoen’s fourth and fifth wind farms in Finland, taking the company’s capacity in operation or under construction in the country to over 700 MW.

Equinor to put Trollvind on hold
In other wind news, Equinor has announced that it is to postpone indefinitely further development of the Trollvind floating offshore wind project in the Norwegian North Sea, due to ‘several challenges, including technology availability, rising cost and a strained timetable to deliver on the original concept’.

The company had previously announced reduced activity in the project, which was to provide electricity to oil and gas platforms in the Troll area and bring power to the Bergen region, due to ‘technical, regulatory and commercial challenges’.