The offshore substation topside for Dogger Bank A, the first of the three 1.2 GW phases of the UK’s Dogger Bank Wind Farm, has been completed at Aibel’s yard in Thailand and is now on its way to Haugesund, Norway, where it will undergo further work.
The topside is expected to arrive at the yard in Haugesund in the latter half of June, according to Aibel.
In Norway, the topside will be placed on an upgraded rig quay, where it will be equipped with transformers, slings, and lifting equipment through several large lifting operations with big and small floating cranes.
Hitachi equipment will be installed on the structure with the yard’s new tower crane, Aibel said.
Aibel and Hitachi ABB Power Grids are delivering all the offshore grid connections for Dogger Bank Wind Farm, under a contract for the Dogger Bank A and B phases signed in November 2020, and for Dogger Bank C at the beginning of 2021.
The majority of Aibel’s work on the Dogger Bank A topside will be completed by mechanical completion in November, the company said, with commissioning work then remaining to be completed until the expected sailaway in early spring 2023.
The 3.6 GW offshore wind farm will use what the developers say is the world’s first unmanned High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) offshore substation, which slashes topside weight by 70 per cent.
According to the latest news from Aibel, the Dogger Bank A topside topside was weighed at 6,780.5 tonnes.
While it was not the heaviest module to be built in Aibel’s Thailand yard – this record belonging to the MSF module of Johan Sverdrup P2 – the Dogger Bank A topside was the largest, according to the company.