Two major milestones have been hit on Ørsted’s Hornsea Two offshore wind farm this week, with all 165 wind turbine foundations and the in-zone substation now installed.
Located 89 km off the Yorkshire coast, it will take the world-leading title from ‘little’ sister Hornsea One when complete, bringing a further 1.4GW of capacity to the UK electricity network.
The substation is the largest of its kind ever installed, weighing around 8,000 tonnes.
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It was lifted into position by the vessel Sleipnir.
Also onsite is the reactive compensation station, which will be lifted into place in the coming days.
Together, they have a combined weight of 10,200 tonnes and have just completed their 8,500 nautical mile journey from Sembcorp Marine’s facility in Singapore.
Closer to site, and the monopile completion means the farm is ready for the final third of turbines to be shipped from Hull - where towers, nacelles and blades are assembled, with the latter produced on the quayside. It will be operated and maintained from Grimsby.
Patrick Harnett, programme director for Hornsea Two at Ørsted, said: “It has been a very busy and exciting time for everyone involved in the project.
“These twin milestones, together with the completion of our export cable circuits, mark the culmination of a truly monumental scope of work involving multiple teams from numerous companies working together in the face of some significant challenges over the last 18 months.
“The completion of the foundation installations marks the end of half a million hours' work, achieved on a challenging timetable and most importantly with an outstanding safety record throughout.
“These are very complex operations and major engineering achievements, delivered thanks to the dedication, professionalism and positivity of the whole project team and we are all delighted that we have completed these significant milestones along the road to having the wind farm fully up and running in 2022.”
Spanning an offshore area of 462 sq km, it will be Orsted’s 13th in UK waters, a £13 billion investment that will see it supply more than 7 per cent of the UK’s electricity. It is also at the forefront of pioneering green hydrogen production in the Humber, as the electricity contributor to the Gigastack project.
Endorsing the work through such challenging times, Duncan Clark, head of UK region for Ørsted said: “As we progress with the development of future offshore wind projects, our secured pipeline including Hornsea Three and Four will double this investment again over this decade, and we are actively pursuing additional large-scale UK opportunities both onshore and offshore.”
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