DEME’s cable-laying vessel (CLV) Viking Neptun is scheduled to start installing the first inter-array cables at the Dogger Bank C offshore wind farm site in the UK on or around 7 September.
The vessel will lay the inter-array cable onto the seabed, where the cable will remain exposed until trenching is performed, which is scheduled to be carried out in September/October, according to a recently issued Notice to Mariners.
Viking Neptun will be assisted by the walk-to-work (W2W) vessel Norside Cetus for the deployment of cable pull-in teams.
DEME Offshore won the engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract for the inter-array cables at the Dogger Bank C offshore wind farm in 2021, after previously being awarded the same work on Dogger Bank A and B.
For the third phase of the UK’s Dogger Bank Wind Farm, DEME’s scope of work includes the supply of approximately 250 kilometres of 66 kV inter-array cables and all related accessories, as well as their installation.
The cables are supplied by the Greece-based subsea cable manufacturer Hellenic Cables, under a contract the company signed with DEME in 2022 .
All inter-array cables at the first 1.2 GW Dogger Bank Wind Farm phase, Dogger Bank A, were installed last year , while the work on Dogger Bank B inter-array connections is still underway with post-lay burial and testing and termination.
Construction work on Dogger Bank C started earlier this year with the installation of the first monopiles by Seaway7’s Seaway Strashnov.
The offshore substation for the third phase was installed this May by Heerema Marine Contractors’ semi-submersible crane vessel (SSCV) Sleipnir .
The first two 1.2 GW phases of the 3.6 GW Dogger Bank Wind Farm will feature GE Vernova’s Haliade-X 13 MW turbines, while Dogger Bank C will comprise 87 Haliade-X 14 MW turbines.
Dogger Bank Wind Farm is owned by SSE Renewables (40 per cent), Equinor (40 per cent), and Vårgrønn (20 per cent).
With an installed capacity of 3.6 GW, the project is currently the world’s largest offshore wind farm under construction, and it may become even larger as the developer plans to build Dogger Bank D, a fourth phase that could bring the total project capacity to 5.6 GW.