Transport of wind turbines to the largest wind farm in the Baltic States has begun
Enefit Green has begun the transport of wind turbines from the port of Paldiski to the largest wind farm in the Baltic States – the Sopi-Tootsi wind farm. Impressive road trains carrying wind turbine components can be sighted as they travel from Paldiski to Tootsi at night until mid-July.
Enefit Green is building the most powerful and modern Sopi-Tootsi renewable energy site in the Baltic States in Põhja-Pärnumaa, where 38 wind turbines and 112,000 solar panels will be installed. The park will produce around 750 gigawatt-hours of renewable electricity per year. This covers about a tenth of Estonia's total annual electricity consumption.
The manufacturer of the wind turbines, Nordex, used ships to transport the components for wind turbines from Asia to Estonia. ‘As there are 38 wind turbines and their components are large, they are shipped to us in several consignments. The blade of a wind turbine is 80 metres long and combined with a truck it stretches to almost 100 metres on the road. Each wind turbine has three blades, seven tower components, plus a nacelle and other parts, so that one wind turbine alone requires several trucks to transport its parts. In the next few months, the components of the wind turbines will be delivered by night transport to our Sopi-Tootsi wind farm, where they are going to be assembled,’ claims Janek Lillemägi, Senior Project Manager of Wind Energy at Enefit Green, in explaining the logistical challenge. The wind turbines should be standing by the end of 2024.
The wind farm is being built by NOBE, Verston, and Connecto. To date, Verston has constructed and reconstructed approximately 200 km of ditches and built 33.5 km of roads connecting the wind turbines, the solar farm, and the substation.
NOBE has built foundations for all 38 wind turbines, using approximately 4,150 loads of concrete. The wind turbines are manufactured and installed by Nordex. Sopi-Tootsi is the largest and the most powerful wind farm in the Baltics, both in terms of the number of wind turbines and its capacity.
According to Lillemägi, the construction of the wind farm is ahead of schedule thanks to good cooperation with the authorities and the local community, as well as joint efforts with the builders.
‘If everything goes as planned, the production of electricity in the new farm should start at the end of this year. The current plan is that the wind farm should be completed in early 2025 and the solar park in late 2025,’ states Lillemägi.
Sopi-Tootsi is Enefit Green's largest investment in renewable energy in recent times. In total, Enefit Green is investing nearly 350 million euros in the construction of the wind and solar farm.
See pictures and a video of how the first parts of the Sopi-Tootsi wind turbines were transported from Paldiski to Tootsi on the night of April 7.