Dogger Bank Adds Sif and Smulders to Tier 1 Roster

The consortium of Sif Netherlands and Smulders Projects Belgium will manufacture all the monopiles and transition pieces for the Dogger Bank A & B offshore wind farm project.

Dogger Bank Wind Farm, a joint venture between SSE Renewables and Equinor, awarded the consortium with the contract to manufacture and deliver 190 monopiles and transition pieces for the 2.4 GW project off the North East coast of England.

The contract is subject to financial close which is foreseen in late 2020.

In the project-specific Sif-Smulders consortium, Sif is responsible for the fabrication and supply of the monopiles and primary steel for the transition pieces, and for the marshalling of all foundation components at its Maasvlakte 2 Rotterdam terminal.

Smulders will manufacture the secondary steel and assemble, coat, and test the fully equipped transition pieces.

Production in the Smulders’ facilities in Poland and Belgium will begin in May 2021. The assembly, which will be done at the Hoboken facility, is scheduled to start in September 2021 and will take approximately ten months.

The Dogger Bank Wind Farm is being developed in three phases – Dogger Bank A, Dogger Bank B, and Dogger Bank C – located more than 130 kilometres from the Yorkshire coast.

Each phase will have an installed generation capacity of 1.2 GW. Combined, they will have an installed capacity of up to 3.6 GW and will be capable of powering more than 4.5 million UK homes.

“This tier one contract with the Sif Group and Smulders is the final one to be confirmed by Dogger Bank Wind Farm for the first two phases, and marks a significant milestone for the project,” Dogger Bank Wind Farm Project Director Steve Wilson said.

”We look forward to working with the joint venture in a collaborative and innovative way, to manufacture the foundations that will support the world’s largest and most powerful wind turbines in operation, and which will provide renewable electricity to more than 4.5 million UK households.”

The consortium said it is committed to include UK local content on the transition pieces for the projects in cooperation with the Dogger Bank team.

“Through our facility at MV2 we are well positioned to serve the Dogger Bank Wind Farm project and we look forward to a continuation of the excellent relationship that dates back many years already,” Fred van Beers, CEO of Sif Holding.

”With this biggest award ever to Sif, the projects still in exclusive negotiation and the strong tender pipeline, Sif’s mid-term order pipeline is now looking very robust.”

The foundations will be installed by OHT’s newbuild Alfa Lift from 2022 to 2024.

They will support the Haliade-X 13 MW turbines scheduled to deliver the first electricity in 2023. The wind farm is slated for full commissioning in 2026.