Dogger Bank Wind Farm, a joint venture between SSE Renewables, Equinor, and Vårgrønn, has signed a vessel reservation agreement with Seaway7 to charter a second turbine installation vessel to support the ongoing delivery of the offshore wind farm off the coast of England.
Starting in 2026, the Seaway Ventus jack-up installation vessel is planned to kick off turbine transport and installation work of GE Vernova’s Haliade-X turbines at the Dogger Bank Wind Farm site located more than 130 kilometres off the northeast coast of England.
The agreement with Seaway7 involves additional work for the company at the Dogger Bank development, where it holds contracts for transporting and installing the monopile foundations and transition pieces across all three phases of the project.
The work on the 1.2 GW Dogger Bank A has been completed, and the works on the 1.2 GW Dogger Bank B are substantially complete, according to the developer.
The deal is worth between USD 150 million and USD 300 million, as per Subsea7’s definition of a substantial contract.
Jan De Nul Group is carrying out the wind turbine transportation and installation work at the Dogger Bank Wind Farm under a contract signed with the joint venture in 2020 and 2021 , respectively.
Turbine installation and commissioning work is continuing at Dogger Bank A, with completion of the first phase of the offshore wind farm expected in the second half of 2025.
The first two 1.2 GW phases of what will become the world’s largest offshore wind farm, 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 .
This year, a couple of blade failures happened at the Dogger Bank A. At the beginning of May, a blade sustained damage, after which GE Vernova launched an investigation into the cause of the incident. The company’s initial findings were that the circumstances surrounding the incident were isolated to the single blade affected and that the damage was due to an installation error.
Several months later, another blade failure event occurred at the first phase, which was not caused by an installation or manufacturing issue but happened during the commissioning process, according to an analysis conducted by the wind turbine manufacturer.
When fully complete in 2027, the 3.6 GW Dogger Bank will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm, capable of powering around six million UK homes annually.
SSE Renewables is leading the construction of the project on behalf of the three joint venture partners. Equinor will be the lead operator of the wind farm on completion for its expected operational life of around 35 years.