Siemens has received an order for the supply, installation and commissioning of 60 direct-drive offshore turbines for the Arkona wind farm, located roughly 35 kilometers northeast of the island of Rügen in the German Baltic Sea. When it comes online in 2019, Arkona will have a total capacity of 385 MW, says Siemens, which will install 60 SWT-6.0-154 towers. The customer is a consortium between German power provider E.ON, based in Essen, and Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil, headquartered in Stavanger. E.ON will be responsible for building and operating the wind farm; Siemens and E.ON will be jointly responsible for turbine service for an initial two-year period. This service agreement also includes remote monitoring of the wind turbines from Siemens’ remote diagnostics center in Brande, Denmark. Over an area of approximately 40 square kilometers, the 60 turbines will be erected on monopile foundations in ocean depths of 23-37 meters. Installation will begin in summer 2018, and Fredericia, Denmark-based A2SEA will be deploying its SEA CHALLENGER, a purpose-built offshore installation vessel, to transport the turbines. “This is the first order for our large direct-drive offshore wind turbines for a project in the Baltic Sea,” says Michael Hannibal, CEO of offshore at Siemens’ wind power and renewables division. “This is also the second offshore wind farm that we will be erecting for E.ON in German waters.” Siemens has already supplied 80 wind turbines for E.ON’s Amrumbank West in the German North Sea. In December 2015, Siemens announced that it would deliver five wind turbines of the 6 MW class to Statoil’s Hywind Scotland project.