The first of 277 turbines to be installed at Dogger Bank A, B and C, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, has arrived. Voltaire, the largest jack-up vessel ever built and the first ever ultra-low emission ship, with a lifting capacity of seven million tons, will soon begin to install the 853-foot tall turbines in the North Sea, about 80 miles of the coast of Yorkshire, England.
Occupying an area almost as large as greater London on seabed that once formed a land bridge between the United Kingdom and Europe, Dogger Bank, when fully complete, will have an installed capacity of 3.6 GW of renewable electricity and be capable of producing enough energy to power the equivalent of 6 million homes annually.
The beginning of the campaign to install GE Renewable Energy’s 13 MW Haliade-X turbines, one of the largest and most powerful in the world, marks a pivotal moment for the project, which is being developed and built by the U.K. developer SSE Renewables in a joint venture with Norway’s Equinor and Vargronn (a joint venture of Eni Plenitude and Hitec Vision). It also represents a major milestone for the U.K.’s global leadership on offshore wind.
SSE Renewables is lead operator for the development and construction of Dogger Bank Wind Farm. Equinor will be lead operator of the wind farm on completion for its expected operational life of around 35 years. Vargronn brings specialist offshore wind expertise to the project.
Dogger Bank has created and supported more than 2,000 jobs, principally in the North East of England. Construction on this scale in the challenging conditions of the North Sea is unprecedented and the project has delivered a number of world-firsts that will significantly accelerate the speed at which future offshore projects can be developed. These include deployment of new 13 MW and 14 MW turbine technology, the world’s first unmanned offshore high voltage direct current (HVDC) substation platform, and first use of HVDC technology on a U.K. wind farm.
“Getting to this milestone has relied on the efforts of a huge number of local and international suppliers, and together we have now moved the boundaries of what is possible in offshore wind,” says Olav Hetland, Vargronn CEO. “Dogger Bank now cements the North Sea’s new role as Europe’s renewable power plant and as the home to a world-leading offshore wind supply chain.”
