- A statement from the Dogger Bank wind farm said: “The project’s first turbine at Dogger Bank A turned on and began producing electricity at 8:37pm BST on Saturday 7 October.”
- The Doggerbank wind farm, located in the North Sea, will have a total power generation capacity of 3.6 gigawatts when fully operational.
- A fourth phase of the wind farm, known as Doggerbank D, has been proposed.
Haliade-X wind turbine photographed in the Netherlands on March 2, 2022.
Peter Bohr | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A project billed as the “world’s largest offshore wind farm” took a big step over the weekend. After generating the initial force.
Doggerbank Wind Farm, located offshore in the North Sea in north-east England, is being developed in three stages, A, B and C, and will have a total capacity of 3.6 GW when fully operational. A fourth phase, known as Doggerbank D, is proposed.
The Dogger Bank Wind Farm Project said in an announcement on Monday: “The project’s first turbine, located at Dogger Bank A, rotated and began producing electricity at 8:37pm (BST) on Saturday 7 October.”
“Power from the first offshore wind turbine is now being transmitted to the UK national grid via Doggerbank’s high voltage direct current transmission system, marking the first time HVDC technology has been used in a UK wind farm. It will be,” he added.
The scale of the project is significant, with project officials saying it could power up to 6 million homes a year. Dogger Bank uses GE Vernova’s massive Haliade-X turbines, which boast 107-meter (approximately 351-foot) blades.
Dogger Bank is a joint venture partnership in which SSE Renewables, Equinor and Vårgronn hold 40%, 40% and 20% shares respectively.
SSE chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies said in a statement that Dogger Bank is a “significant boost to the UK’s leadership in energy security, affordability and tackling climate change”.
“This is exactly how we should respond to the energy crisis,” he added.
Equinor is a Norwegian company best known for its oil and gas production, but it is also involved in wind energy projects such as Dogger Bank and Hywind Tampen.
Equinor chief executive Anders Oppedal said: “Renewable megaprojects like Doggerbank create an industrial wind hub in the heart of the North Sea and are a huge boost to the UK’s offshore wind ambitions. We will play our part and support our net zero ambitions.”
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak welcomed the news. Mr Sunak, who has faced harsh criticism from some quarters following the change in climate change policy, said offshore wind would “generate renewable and efficient energy that can power British homes from British seas”. “It is essential for this,” he said.
The UK is home to a mature offshore wind energy sector, with the US Government’s Department of International Trade highlighting characteristics such as particularly favorable wind speeds, a long coastline and a “relatively shallow seabed”.
Major offshore wind farms off the UK coast include Hornsea 2, a fully operational 165-turbine facility with a capacity of over 1.3 GW. Danish energy company Orsted previously called the plant “the world’s largest installed wind farm.”
Dogger Bank officials have repeatedly referred to the facility as “the world’s largest offshore wind farm,” but in Monday’s statement they also referred to it as “the world’s largest offshore wind farm under construction,” adding that clearly acknowledges the fact that much work still needs to be done. done.
Across the Atlantic, the United States still has a way to go to catch up with countries like the United Kingdom, and a variety of factors create a difficult environment for development in this area.
The United States’ first offshore wind farm, the 30-megawatt Block Island Wind Farm, only began commercial operation in late 2016, but the United States has plans to increase its offshore wind capacity in the coming years.
In November 2021, ground was broken for Vineyard Wind 1, the United States’ “first commercial-scale offshore wind farm.”