The Dogger Bank offshore wind farm is located off England’s north-east coast and has begun generating power following installation of the first turbine at the site
By Jeremy Hsu
The offshore jack-up installation vessel Voltaire is helping construct the world’s largest offshore wind farm in the North Sea - Jan De Nul Group
The first wind turbine has been installed at the site of what will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm – and it has already begun sending power to the UK grid.
The plan is to install a total of 277 wind turbines at the Dogger Bank Wind Farm, located about 130 kilometres off the north-east coast of England. Once fully operational in 2026, the wind farm is expected to power more than six million UK homes.
The first turbine at the site is a GE Haliade-X turbine with spinning blade tips reaching 260 metres above sea level – about the same height as New York City’s Rockefeller Center. The power it generates flows through an array of high-voltage direct current cables that connects to the coast of north-eastern England.
Each of the mammoth wind turbines is being installed by the Voltaire – the world’s largest jack-up installation vessel – which itself stands taller than the Eiffel Tower when it plants its four legs on the seafloor.
The Dogger Bank project is moving forward, but a recent UK government clean energy auction did not award any new offshore wind farm contracts after developers argued that the electricity generation prices were too low.
