Norwegian oil firm Equinor and its partner SSE secured contracts by the UK authorities to develop three large scale offshore wind projects in the Dogger Bank region of the North Sea. This will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm development with a total installed capacity of 3.6 GW.
The Dogger Bank wind farm, to consist of three projects, Creyke Beck A, Creyke Beck B and Teesside A, are expected to produce enough energy to power the equivalent of 4.5 million UK homes.
A full-scale development of Dogger Bank will constitute an industrial wind hub in the heart of the North Sea, playing a major role in the UK’s ambitions for offshore wind and supporting the net zero ambition. Excellent wind speeds, shallow waters and scale make Dogger Bank well positioned to deliver low cost renewable electricity to UK homes and businesses,
…says Eldar Sætre, CEO of Equinor.
Located more than 130 km east of the Yorkshire Coast in the UK North Sea, this development comes in line with UK Plans to reach decarbonization by 2050.
This success demonstrates that offshore wind is the key technology to enable the UK to become carbon neutral by 2050 in the most cost-effective way, whilst also delivering significant economic benefits across the country
…explains Jim Smith, Managing Director of SSE Renewables.
The Dogger Bank projects are estimated to trigger a total capital investment of approximately GBP 9 billion between 2020 and 2026.
The joint venture will be seeking non-recourse project financing to fund the Dogger Bank development.
The partners are planning for final investment decision for the first project during 2020 and first power generation is planned for 2023. Further phases of the Dogger Bank project will be developed thereafter.
The joint venture has selected SSE as the lead operator during the project construction phase and Equinor the lead operator for operations.
The awards were given under the Contracts for Difference (CfD) competitive auction held by National Grid on behalf of the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) which has successfully commissioned 6 GW of offshore wind to reach a target of 30 GW of offshore wind by 2030.
The first project is expected to be operational in 2023, and the lease is given for 50 years.
UK hosts the world’s largest offshore wind farms by capacity in its waters. Walney Wind Farms are currently the world’s largest by capacity, 9 miles west of Walney Island off the coast of Cumbria, in the Irish Sea.
Recently, Equinor began production from the Utgard field, a cross border gas and condensate field in the North Sea with two wells; one on the UK side and one on the Norwegian side
