The first of 197 monopiles has been installed at the Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm site, some 120 kilometres off the coast of Norfolk, UK.
“A team of more than 200 experts from Ørsted and its contractors, Cadeler and Menck, are working closely together to ensure the safe installation of all 197 monopiles within the Hornsea Zone”, Ørsted said via social media. “The monopiles are the largest we’ve ever used offshore in Europe, and each will support a 15 MW wind turbine.”
The XXL monopiles, manufactured by Haizea Wind Group and Dajin Heavy Industry , are being installed by Cadeler’s vessel Wind Ally , with the company’s vessel Wind Orca deployed for secondary structure installation works. The foundation commissioning works will be supported by the service operations vessel (SOV) Esvagt Froude , according to information about the project shared earlier.
Hornsea 3, Ørsted’s third gigawatt-scale project in the North Sea’s Hornsea zone, will comprise 197 Siemens Gamesa SG 14-236 DD offshore wind turbines, which have a capacity of 14 MW excluding power boost.
With an installed capacity of 2.9 GW, Hornsea 3 is said to be the largest single offshore wind farm in the world.
The offshore wind farm, owned by Ørsted and Apollo-managed funds, which was recently joined by Mubadala Investment Company , is expected to be operational in 2027.