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Construction Proceeding on World’s Largest Offshore Wind Farm 

substations for world's largest offshore wind farm
Completed substations were loaded onto a heavy lift vessel (Sembcorp Marine)

Published Aug 16, 2021 4:21 PM by The Maritime Executive

Construction is proceeding with additional components completed for what is projected to become the world’s largest offshore wind farm. Located approximately 50 miles off England’s Yorkshire Coast in the North Sea, Orsted’s Hornsea Two Offshore Wind Farm will have a capacity of 1.4 GW when it goes into service in 2022.

Recently, Semborp Marine in Singapore completed the assembly of the topside units for the wind field consisting of the offshore substation and reactive compensation station. The construction is the largest AC offshore substation and combined with the other unit they together weigh over 10,200 tons. The two units were recently placed aboard a heavy lift vessel and departed Singapore on August 15. The substations are expected to reach the UK by late September. Once there they will be integrated with their jackets, which were installed in October 2020.

“With plans to have the wind farm operational in 2022, this is a very exciting milestone for Hornsea Two,” said Patrick Harnett, Senior Programme Director for Orsted. “Hornsea Two will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm and is already paving the way for future renewable energy projects which will have a significant impact on our mission to reach net-zero.”

The construction work at the installation site began in summer 2019 and continues to make strong progress. Recently, Rostock-based EEW Special Pipe Constructions announced that it had completed the last of the monopiles for the site. They were shipped to Eemshaven and from there are then being transported to the installation. A total of 165 monopiles were built in Rostock for the wind farm.

The site marked a key milestone at the end of May 2021, when the first turbine was raised into position. The first load out of turbines left the port of Hull in May on the installation vessel Sea Challenger, owned by DEME Offshore. The turbines include the new 265-foot-long blades which have been manufactured at Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy’s blade factory in Hull. 

In a recent update, they reported that as of mid-August 50 of the turbines were now in position. The completed array will have 165 8MW Siemens turbines installed, each standing 656 feet above sea level, with a rotor diameter of 578 feet.