The tremendous progress our CfD projects have made demonstrate how vital renewables are to the future of energy. Both of our projects Hornsea One and East Anglia One have notably achieved major milestones since being awarded CfDs, enabling the delivery of low carbon electricity and bringing the UK closer to achieving Net Zero.
Hornsea One:
Hornsea One, the world’s largest offshore windfarm was commissioned in December 2019. Now commercially operational, Hornsea One is the first ever offshore windfarm to reach a capacity of over 1GW.
At full capacity, Hornsea One generates 1.2GW of clean electricity, and for the coming decades will continue to provide renewable energy that meets the needs of well over one million homes in the UK. The turbine array is located 120km from its landfall in Lincolnshire, making Hornsea One currently the furthest offshore windfarm to be built from shore. Each of the 174 7MW Siemens Gamesa wind turbines stand over 190m above the North Sea and are distributed across an area of 407km2 . The three project phases of Hornsea One, each with a capacity of 400MW, were awarded Investment Contracts in 2014, enabling Ørsted to take its Final Investment Decision. The first phase of the project achieved its Start Date on 2 May 2019. The windfarm is a joint venture between Ørsted, the global leader in offshore wind, and Global Infrastructure Partners, who purchased a 50% share in the site in 2018. Works first started in 2016 with groundworks for the onshore substation and followed by the cabling works. Offshore, monopile foundation installation commenced in January 2018 with the first export cable section laid three months later.
Another milestone was achieved in June of the same year when the world’s first offshore Reactive Compensation Station, weighing a total of 4,000 tonnes, was installed. Located halfway between the site and the shore, this enables High Voltage Alternating Current to be carried by longer cables than would otherwise be possible. Clean electricity from the wind turbines steps up in voltage at three offshore substations for transmission via these cables to the National Grid onshore. First power was generated at the site in February 2019, with the installation of turbines then continuing for just over eight months – a remarkably fast process. Overall, with the dedication and hard work of over 8,000 people, the project was delivered in just under four years. Each of the 75m long blades for Hornsea One were manufactured by skilled workers at Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy’s purpose-built facility in Hull. The factory is located just over 30 miles away from Ørsted’s East Coast Hub in Grimsby, the world’s largest operations and maintenance facility for offshore wind. Operationally, Hornsea One is run from the East Coast Hub and supported by the Service Operations Vessel (SOV) Edda Mistral. As well as transporting technicians offshore, the vessel works as accommodation and warehousing for the site, located in the field for four weeks at a time.
East Anglia:
Successfully securing a CFD in February 2015, the East Anglia ONE offshore windfarm is now nearing completion. Developed by ScottishPower Renewables, a subsidiary of the Iberdrola Group, it is located 43km off the Suffolk coast. The project commenced construction in 2017 and will feature 102 Siemens Gamesa 7MW turbines providing an installed capacity of 714MW. Once operational, East Anglia ONE will generate enough clean energy to power the equivalent of over 630,000 homes14. LCCC has worked closely with ScottishPower Renewables on East Anglia ONE since 2015 and the project is well prepared to begin generation in 2019.
ScottishPower Renewables made excellent progress both onshore and offshore in 2019. The first quarter saw the first of two offshore export cables successfully installed and tested, while considerable progress was made in installing each of the two onshore cables and commencement of the inter-array cable campaign. Turbine installation will commence in May 2019, with first power expected later in the year. Operational Conditions Precedents for the first two phases are expected to be met in 2019, with the third phase being met in 2020.
East Anglia ONE will see an overall investment of around £2.5bn and ScottishPower Renewables is on track to spend over 50% of this investment in the UK. Once complete, East Anglia ONE expects to provide around 100 full-time operations and maintenance jobs for the project’s 30-year lifetime; offering the opportunity for industry transfer from other sectors such as oil and gas, and apprenticeships.
Charlie Jordan, Project Director for East Anglia ONE: “LCCC has played an important role in making East Anglia ONE a success. The organisation’s commercial and technical expertise, combined with early and constant engagement, has helped to optimise our plans for the project, enabling the provision of vital renewable energy. Once fully operational, East Anglia ONE will produce a significant amount of clean energy for the UK. As a world leader in wind energy, we are committed to working with government to help meet climate change targets by driving down carbon emissions and ultimately delivering a better future, quicker for the UK.”