First Turbines Up at World’s Biggest Offshore Wind Farm

September 11, 2023, by Adrijana Buljan

The first two wind turbines have been installed at Dogger Bank A, the first of the three phases of the UK’s 3.6 GW Dogger Bank Wind Farm, the world’s biggest offshore wind farm under construction.

According to a Notice of Operations from the project, the first wind turbine was installed on the 29th of August and the second one was in place a few days ago.

The work on installing the project’s 95 GE Haliade-X 13 MW wind turbines is being performed by Jan De Nul’s jack-up vessel Voltaire which left the Able Seaton Port with the first batch of components and headed to the offshore site at the beginning of last month.

Major offshore construction work, besides the wind turbine installation, continues at the Dogger Bank A site, located 130 kilometres off the east coast of Yorkshire, with the installation of all 95 monopile foundations now completed.

The monopiles were installed by the heavy lift vessel Seaway Strashnov, which has now left the site.

The crane vessel Jumbo Fairplayer, which was installing transition pieces, has also left the construction site to de-mobilise as the vessel completed its workscope. The work will resume later this month by the crane vessel Alfa Lift.

So far, 52 transition pieces have been installed on their respective monopile foundations at Dogger Bank A.

The 3.6 GW Dogger Bank Wind Farm is owned by SSE Renewables (40 per cent), Equinor (40 per cent), and Vårgrønn (20 per cent).

The first two 1.2 GW phases, Dogger Bank A and Dogger Bank B, will comprise 95 Haliade-X 13 MW turbines each, while Dogger Bank C will feature 87 Haliade-X 14 MW turbines.

Once completed in 2026, the project will generate enough electricity to power up to 6 million homes in the UK. The 277-turbine wind farm will generate annual carbon savings equivalent to 1.5 million average petrol cars, according to its developers.