World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm Readies For First Above-Water Hardware

Installation of monopiles at Dogger Bank A, the first of the three 1.2 GW phases comprising the world’s largest wind farm under construction, the 3.6 GW Dogger Bank, is scheduled to start in the first half of July.

DEME Offshore’s installation vessel Innovation is expected to start installing the first three of the 95 monopiles at the Dogger Bank A site located more than 130 kilometres off the Yorkshire coast, the UK, on 13 July.

The installation of all 95 monopiles on Dogger Bank A is scheduled to be completed in the third quarter of 2023.

The monopiles were manufactured by Sif Group which, in partneship with Smulders, is in charge of delivering all 277 monopiles for Dogger Bank, with Smulders delivering the transition pieces.

The monopiles have a diameter of 8.6 metres and will have an overall weight of 103,087 tons, Sif said.

DEME Offshore is also in charge of engineering, procurement, construction and installation of the inter-array cables for all three phases of the project.

As previously reported, the transport and installation of the monopile foundations at the Dogger Bank Wind Farm was initially planned to be carried out by Seaway 7’s newbuild foundation installation vessel, Seaway Alfa Lift, currently under construction at the China Merchants Heavy Industry (CMHI) shipyard in Jiangsu, China.

However, the vessel suffered a crane incident in October 2021 which pushed the expected delivery to the second half of 2023.

Seaway 7 has since decided to deploy Seaway Strashnov on the project until Alfa Lift is delivered, and has now further bolstered the installation fleet with the chartering of DEME’s Innovation.

Offshore construction at Dogger Bank started this spring with a geophysical pre-lay survey along the Dogger Bank A export cable corridor, followed by the start of the export cable installation work at the end of April.

Dogger Bank Wind Farm is owned by SSE Renewables, Equinor, and Eni. The Italian company is transferring its ownership stake to Vårgrønn, a renewable energy company jointly owned by Plenitude, Eni’s energy transition unit, and HitecVision.

SSE Renewables is leading the construction and delivery of all three phases, while Equinor will operate the wind farm on completion. The total investment in Dogger Bank Wind Farm is expected to be around GBP 9 billion (EUR 10.47 billion).

The wind farm will comprise 277 GE Haliade-X 13 MW and GE Haliade-X 14 MW wind turbines scheduled to deliver the first electricity in 2023.

Once fully commissioned in 2026, Dogger Bank will be capable of providing around five per cent of the UK’s electricity.

Follow offshoreWIND.biz on: