Dogger Bank signs record breaking contract with GE - confirming hundreds of jobs

Posted on 22 September 2020

Dogger Bank Key Facts - September 2020

About the project

Dogger Bank will be world’s largest offshore wind farm, with a capacity of 3.6GW

• It will be able to provide clean electricity for over 4.5 million UK homes
• Roughly equivalent to 5% of the UK’s electricity demand

The project is a 50/50 joint venture between Equinor and SSE Renewables

The area covered by the wind farm is 1675 km2, which is larger than Greater London (1569 km2)

Dogger Bank will be constructed in three 1.2 GW phases: Dogger Bank A, B and C (previously known as Creyke Beck A, Creyke Beck B and Teesside A respectively)

Consent was granted in 2015, with the projects receiving record low Contract for Difference Strike prices 

About the site

• Dogger Bank is located off the North East coast of England
• Each phase is at least 130km from shore – almost the equivalent distance as the length of the River Tees from source to mouth.
• The wind farm is located in a shallow area of the North Sea on a sandbank that used to be called “Doggerland”, and which connected Britain to mainland Europe until about 6500 BC.
• Due to the distance from shore, this is the first offshore wind project in the UK that will use High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission.

Onshore works

• Onshore construction has begun, and is being undertaken by Jones Bros Civil Engineering UK for phases A and B
• The onshore cable route is around 30km and will transport the clean electricity from the coastal village of Ulrome in the East Riding of Yorkshire, to converter stations just south of the town of Beverley, after which it will connect to the existing National Grid substation at Creyke Beck in Cottingham.

Installation

• The project’s Installation Base will be located at Able Seaton Port, Hartlepool
• The Port will be a marshalling facility for the receipt, storage and pre-assembly of the turbine components.
• Each turbine comprises a nacelle, three blades and three tower sections.
• The tower sections are assembled vertically at the installation base, prior to collection.
• The first components are expected to be delivered in Q4 2022; installation will commence Q1 2023 with completion expected Q4 2024.
• It is anticipated that the activity will support c. 120 jobs throughout the installation process Operations and maintenance
• The project’s Operations and Maintenance Base will be located at The Port of Tyne
• When fully operational, over 200 people will be based there or offshore to operate and maintain the wind farm
• Jobs include maintenance technician roles (mainly based offshore) plus office-based teams to support operations from land.
• Main recruitment activity to begin in early 2022.

About GE’s Haliade-X 13MW wind turbine

• The project be the first in the world to use GE’s 13 MW Haliade-X
• The power from one rotation of a Haliade-X 13 MW wind turbine blade can power a UK home for over two days
• Using bigger turbines helps to reduce the cost of offshore wind
• The GE Haliade-X turbine has a 220m rotor covering a swept area of 38,000 m2 – that’s three times bigger than the London Eye!
• One Haliade-X nacelle is comparable to the size of six Double-Decker London buses
• One blade measures 107m in length – double the wing-span of The Angel of the North
• To install the turbines, the project will use the world’s largest jack-up installation vessel; Jan De Nul’s Voltaire. The vessel is taller than the Eiffel Tower, has a lifting capacity of 3000 tonnes and entering into service in 2022.
• The GE Haliade-X 12MW wind turbine (previous model):

o Is the only wind turbine to have ever generated 288 MWh in one single day; a new world record!

o Has been recognized as Best Sustainable Invention of the Year by TIME magazine (DEC 2019)

Able Seaton Port (ASP) – where 120 jobs will be based during construction

• ASP is a 51 hectare (126 acre) site and has some of the strongest quays in Europe which have been constructed particularly to suit the requirements of the offshore energy sector.
• ASP has the capacity to handle virtually all offshore vessels that are operating in the North Sea.
• ASP has large mobile harbour and crawler cranes already available along with self-propelled mobile transporters (SPMTs) and other plant and equipment to handle offshore wind components.
• In 2018 ASP provided the installation base and all onshore handling activities for the Hornsea One offshore wind farm foundation package.
• In the 12 months from mid-September 2020 ASP will be the installation base for the Triton Knoll offshore wind farm turbine package.

Port of Tyne – where 200 operational and maintenance jobs will be based from

• The Port is the custodian of 17 miles of the River Tyne which is home to an existing offshore cluster and contributing to a well-established offshore energy supply chain.
• The Port of Tyne is one of only two deep sea ports in the North East of England.
• The Port of Tyne is accessible being close to Newcastle International Airport, Newcastle Train station as well as well-connected public transport with its own metro station
• Three innovative universities (Durham, Newcastle and Northumbria) and a number of further education colleges are located in the North East, offering industry-relevant courses, training and qualifications aimed at delivering a world-class labour force for the offshore wind sector.
• The Port of Tyne is home to the UK’s first, and only, 2050 Maritime Innovation Hub, a partnership of organisations from maritime, logistics, technology and academia. Projects focus on a range of innovative and collaborative solutions to advance maritime innovation from clean energy, autonomous systems, AI, smart sensors, block-chain and big data analytics.
• The Port of Tyne’s ambitious ‘Tyne 2050’ strategy aims to transform technology, business, infrastructure, safety, environmental management, people, resilience and community. Targets include ‘Carbon Neutral by 2030’, ‘Double Diversity by 2030’ and ‘All Electric by 2040’.