Installation works on the 402MW Dudgeon offshore wind farm are progressing according to plan and the project is halfway to being completed, according to Dudgeon Offshore Windfarm Limited (DOWL).
The wind farm’s export cables were laid and the jacket for the offshore substation was installed in May. The crane vessel Oleg Strashnov has installed half of the 67 foundations at the site, according to DOWL.
The first foundations at the site were installed in early April.
“The project is really starting to become visible and the Dudgeon Bank is no longer an untouched area,” said Dudgeon project director Olav-Bernt Haga.
The Dudgeon project celebrated Norway’s Constitution Day by installing the substation jacket on the field on 17 May. Built by SLP in Lowestoft the jacket was installed by the Stanislav Yudin vessel.
The topside, which constitutes the substation, was constructed by the same yard and will be ready for installation in August. This operation will be performed by Oleg Strashnov, the same vessel which is currently installing the foundations – the huge monopiles and the transition pieces – for the towers and turbines that will arrive later.
”We have had good progress. They are installing an average of three foundations per week, but in this area we are of course at the mercy of the weather,“ said Svein Aage Gurrik, who is in charge of the Dudgeon project’s marine operations.
The second and last export cable reached the jacket in May after having been pulled from the landfall in Weybourne.
Cables between the wind turbines and the substation are now to be laid. Electricity will be transmitted through export cables from the substation to the Weybourne landfall, and then by onshore underground cables to Necton where it will be transformed once more before it enters the National Grid.
The onshore activity is also high: the Necton substation is almost completed, and cable-laying from Weybourne to Necton is about to be finished.
Great Yarmouth is hiring operations personnel and September sees the opening of a new office building and base, together with a naming ceremony for the service vessel from Esvagt to be used in the Dudgeon operating phase.
”We have many ongoing activities at the moment, and fortunately most of them are proceeding as planned. The project has not had any serious injuries,“ said Haga.
The Dudgeon offshore wind farm, owned by Statoil, Statkraft and Masdar, will comprise 67 Siemens 6MW turbines, and is expected to be commissioned by early 2017.
Statoil is in charge of the Dudgeon offshore wind farm in the development, commissioning and O&M phases. Co-owners in the project are Statkraft and Masdar. The total investment in the offshore wind farm, which was officially approved in 2014, is estimated at GBP 1.5 billion.