UXO Removal Work Underway at Hornsea Three Export Cable Route

April 17, 2025, by Adrijana Buljan

Ørsted is conducting a confirmed unexploded ordnance (cUXO) removal campaign along the export cable route of the Hornsea Three offshore wind project in the UK and a potential UXO (pUXO) inspection campaign in the array area.

As of 14 April, 24 confirmed UXOs within the Hornsea Three export cable route were removed, with the explosive ordnance detonation (EOD) of the one remaining cUXO being undertaken by the vessel Glomar Wave, which did the same work on the East Anglia Three offshore wind farm last year.

UXO Clearance Starting at 1.4 GW UK Offshore Wind Farm Site

Project Updates

The EOD works at the Hornsea Three export cable route are expected to be completed by May 2025, according to a Notice to Mariners from the project.

At the Hornsea Three array site, a potential UXO (pUXO) inspection campaign is underway with ten pUXOs confirmed as cUXOs as of 14 April. The pUXO inspection campaign is being performed using the vessel Kamara. The EOD work at the Hornsea Three array area is expected to be undertaken in a separate campaign commencing in the third quarter of 2025.

The 2.9 GW Hornsea Three offshore wind farm, located approximately 160 kilometres off the Yorkshire coast, will comprise around 200 Siemens Gamesa’s 14 MW wind turbines and is expected to be operational in 2027.

Ørsted was awarded a Contract for Difference (CfD) for Hornsea Three in July 2022, with the developer saying that with an installed capacity of 2.9 GW, the project was the largest single offshore wind farm in the world.

In 2023, when Ørsted took the Final Investment Decision (FID) on the offshore wind farm, the company noted that the CfD framework permitted a reduction of the awarded capacity and that Ørsted would use this flexibility to submit a share of Hornsea Three’s capacity into the UK’s CfD allocation round 6 (AR6).

Hornsea Three was awarded 1,080 MW capacity in the UK’s AR6 auction in September 2024.