Friday 4 August 2023

The campaign to install the first of 277 turbines at the world’s largest offshore wind farm is underway, marking a major advance in the industry and speeding up the transition to a cleaner, more secure energy system.

The 260m tall turbines – which are almost twice the height of the London Eye – will be installed c.80 miles off the coast of Yorkshire using a specialist vessel with a lifting capacity of 3,200 tonnes, the largest of its kind in the world.

Work to install the first 260m turbine is expected to begin at the weekend.

The scale of Dogger Bank Wind Farm is immense, occupying an area almost as large as Greater London, on seabed that once formed a land bridge between the UK and Europe. When fully complete it will have an installed capacity of 3.6GW of renewable electricity – more than two and a half times the size of the next largest offshore wind farm* – and be capable of producing enough clean energy to power the equivalent of six million homes annually^.

On a visit to Able Seaton Port in the North East of England to mark the occasion, Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said:

"I am pleased to be here in Hartlepool today with SSE as we install the first wind turbine at the new Dogger Bank offshore wind farm. This project will generate cheap, clean energy to power millions of homes and provide the UK with greater energy independence in the face of Putin's energy ransom. Disruption to global energy supplies is one of the key risks we've highlighted in our new National Risk Register and working with SSE and its partners, we are making Britain more secure."

The commencement of the campaign to install GE Renewable Energy's 13MW Haliade-X turbines, one of the largest and most powerful in the world, is a pivotal moment for the landmark project, which is being developed and built by the UK developer SSE Renewables in a joint venture with Norway’s Equinor and Vårgrønn (a joint venture by Eni Plenitude and Hitec Vision). It also represents a major milestone for the UK’s global leadership on offshore wind.