Sembmarine Hopes to Win East Anglia ONE OSS Gig

Sembmarine SLP hopes it will win a contract for the offshore substation for the East Anglia ONE offshore wind project. 

At an event celebrating the completion and delivery of the offshore substation for the Dudgeon offshore wind farm, the company issued a rallying campaign call to the East of England energy industry.

Paul Thomson, managing director of Sembmarine SLP, said: “We hope to win the offshore substation for East Anglia ONE. It is called the East Anglia field, we are in East Anglia, we have East Anglian solutions and I am looking for your support. How can we win that together?”

Offshore wind farms to be developed off the east of England in the next decade offered huge opportunities for the local workforce and economy, he said. “We want more projects going forward and continuing to attract investment to make sure we have a workforce for the future.”

Waveney MP Peter Aldous said he would be lobbying government, councils and the industry for future fabrication projects for Sembmarine SLP. “What can we do to make the most of this opportunity? The challenge that lies ahead is to get the work.” 

The event was held at OrbisEnergy in Lowestoft on Friday, and was organised for Sembmarine SLP by the East of England Energy Group (EEEGR).

Thomson appealed to the event: “What has the local industry got that we could offer a different approach? New technologies, different ways of doing things, how can we be more cost efficient? It is our future we are looking at.”

“We are looking at fields that will be developed over the next 10 years. We need to be very commercially-minded and cost efficient in what we do
The company worked with more than 50 local suppliers,” he said. “It is not just the guys that we employ. It is our suppliers and subcontractors that help us to meet our targets.”

“Sembmarine SLP has an enormously high reputation for delivering on time, with good staff relations with safety paramount,” Aldous said. “The challenge is for us to help Sembmarine SLP get these contracts to generate the investment into that yard and move forward with contracts to open up employment opportunities and help move industry down the supply chain.”

The 1500-tonne Dudgeon jacket is sitting on a barge awaiting its sail away early next month. In two weeks, the jacket will be sunk into the seabed in the North Sea using suction bucket technology for the first time on a substation platform in UK waters. The suction buckets, weighing about 110t each, have been welded on to the jacket ready for installation.

The four-deck topside is being completed at the yard to be lifted on to the jacket in August.

The substation is designed to stand in the sea for at least 25 years, sending electricity via cables from Dudgeon’s 67 wind turbines to the onshore substation at Necton, near Swaffham.