Work on installing the first 260m turbine at the Dogger Bank Wind Farm is expected to begin this weekend.

The large-scale project in the North Sea – occupying an area almost as large as Greater London – will see 277 turbines installed around 80 miles off the Yorkshire coast, using a specialist vessel with a lifting capacity of 3,200 tonnes.

The start of the campaign to install GE Renewable Energy’s 13MW Haliade-X turbines is a pivotal moment for the landmark project, which is being developed and built by the UK developer SSE Renewables in a joint venture with Norway’s Equinor and Vårgrønn (a joint venture by Eni Plenitude and Hitec Vision).

When fully complete it will have an installed capacity of 3.6GW of renewable electricity – more than two and a half times the size of the next largest offshore wind farm – and be capable of producing enough clean energy to power the equivalent of six million homes annually.

Initially Dogger Bank A and B will connect to the existing Creyke Beck substation near Cottingham in the East Riding of Yorkshire, while C will connect with the existing Lackenby Substation at Teesside. All three phases will have 1.2 GW of installed generation capacity.

The proposed Dogger Bank D (fourth phase) would be located in the eastern zone of the Dogger Bank C lease area, and consists of two options involving the National Grid and hydrogen.

The second option would see the use of the electricity produced by the project to generate green hydrogen at a dedicated electrolysis facility in the Humber region. The facility, if developed, could become the UK’s largest green hydrogen project and, subject to supportive Government policy and supply chain alignment, could significantly contribute to the UK Government’s 2030 green hydrogen ambitions.

The two options to utilise the energy produced by Dogger Bank D are being explored in parallel.

During this exploratory period, the project team are considering broad zones within the area of scoping that could potentially accommodate the construction and operational compound needs of a Hydrogen Production Facility and its associated infrastructure. Work will continue post-scoping to refine the project in terms of its size, location and required infrastructure using an iterative approach to develop a preferred option.

Alistair Phillips-Davies, SSE CEO, said, “It is action, not ambition, that will secure our energy future and this project shows action on a massive scale. But we will need many more Dogger Banks to achieve our goals and we look forward to working with government to bring forward more projects at pace.” Vattenfall recently suspended work on its 1.4GW Norfolk Boreas site after a 40% rise in project costs, citing supply chain delays and deteriorating market conditions in the last year since the Ukraine war.

SSE Renewables is lead operator for the development and construction of Dogger Bank, Equinor will be lead operator of the wind farm on completion for its expected operational life of around 35 years, and Vårgrønn brings specialist offshore wind expertise to the project.

Source:H2VIEW