The world’s largest offshore wind farm is getting its first turbines

The UK’s Dogger Bank, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, is kicking off the installation of its first 13 megawatt (MW) turbines this weekend.

The 277 GE Renewable Energy 13 MW Haliade-X turbines will be installed around 80 miles off the Yorkshire coast by the Voltaire (pictured above), the largest offshore jack-up installation vessel ever built. The ultralow emission ship has a lifting capacity of 3,200 tonnes.

The Haliade-X turbines are 260 meters (853 feet) tall. To put that into perspective, each is as tall as the Rockefeller Center in New York. Each turn of their 107-meter-long (351-foot-long) blades will produce enough clean energy to power an average UK household for two days.

Dogger Bank Wind Farm will occupy an area almost as large as Greater London on a seabed that once formed a land bridge between the UK and Europe.

Once it’s online, the 3.6 gigawatts (GW) offshore wind farm will be capable of producing enough clean energy to power the equivalent of 6 million households annually. It will generate annual CO2 savings equivalent to the emissions of nearly 1.5 million average gas-powered cars.

The world’s largest offshore wind farm is being developed and built by the UK developer SSE Renewables in a joint venture with Norway’s Equinor and Vårgrønn (a joint venture by Eni Plenitude and Hitec Vision).

Equinor EVP Renewables Pål Eitrheim said:

We’re delighted to soon begin operating Dogger Bank from our new O&M base at the Port of Tyne, which will host 400 jobs over the 35-year lifetime of the wind farm. We look forward to seeing the 277 turbines installed safely over the next three years, generating green electricity at scale and powering millions of British homes.

Read more: The world’s largest offshore wind farm is going to get even larger

Photo: SSE

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