World’s largest offshore wind farm powers 6m UK homes

As an island nation with a coastline of more than 31,000km¹ and extensive territorial waters, the United Kingdom is ideally positioned to embrace offshore wind power as a source of renewable energy. And later this year, UK homes are due to start receiving commercially available power from the world’s largest offshore wind farm.

Located around 120km from land, at Dogger Bank in the North Sea, the 3.6GW Dogger Bank Wind Farm is a key part of the UK government’s plan to reach net-zero by 2050² and our technology is playing a vital role in transferring that offshore renewable energy to land – safely and reliably.

Among a suite of our solutions contributing to this mega-project are PCS6000 medium voltage converters installed in the GE Renewable Energy Haliade-X 13-megawatt (MW) wind turbines.

These huge structures, currently the most powerful of their kind, are 260m tall and their individual blades measure 107m – 11 metres taller than Big Ben. A single rotation of the turbine’s three blades generates enough electricity to power a typical UK home for more than two days.

Power was first sent from Dogger Bank in 2023, ahead of commercial operations, via the ‘A’ section of its three-phase development. When fully operational, the windfarm’s ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ phases, with a total of 277 wind turbines, will deliver clean energy to approximately six million homes from 2027, if all goes to schedule³.

We’re delivering the complete electrical system for the offshore substations for Dogger Bank A, B and C. The scope for Dogger Bank C includes auxiliary control systems, overall operational technology (OT) security, IT infrastructure, condition monitoring, telecoms, low voltage power distribution and bus ducts.  

The final electrical substation for Dogger Bank C has recently been floated out to sea for installation, marking a major milestone in our electrical infrastructure delivery for the project.

Combined with digital technologies, these systems enhance availability, safety and efficiency, while enabling remote operations and predictive maintenance to reduce offshore staffing and extend asset life.

ABB’s technology and engineering solutions serve as a gateway through which electricity generated by wind turbines flows to the national grid and into people’s homes.  When the Dogger Bank turbines produce power, offshore substations allow the alternating current (AC) to be converted to direct current (DC) so the electricity can be transported to onshore substations, where it is inverted back to AC.

Supporting nine offshore UK windfarms, as government backs wind power

Dogger Bank is only one of nine UK offshore windfarm projects we’re supporting. Another notable collaboration is our partnership with Aker Solutions for the electrical study of the 560 MW Green Volt floating offshore wind project.

Green Volt, located 80km off the coast of Peterhead in northeast Scotland, aims to become the first commercial-scale floating wind farm in Europe and will contribute to the decarbonization of the UK energy system.

The country’s government has pledged to double onshore wind and quadruple offshore wind, as it aims to deliver a “clean, affordable and secure” energy system by 2030⁴. When fully operational in 2029, Green Volt is designed to supply 1.5 TWh of renewable power to the UK grid annually⁵ – enough to supply approximately 555,000 homes per year.

Unlike the turbines installed at Dogger Bank, Green Volt’s turbines float on the sea’s surface, while being tethered to the seabed. Floating turbines can be placed in deeper offshore waters, where winds are typically stronger. The power generated is taken to land via underwater cable.

Working with Aker Solutions, we will:

• Undertake the complete electrical study for the facility, including system design and high voltage equipment.
• Lead the electrical infrastructure development, including integrated automation and telecommunications systems for the offshore platform and onshore substation.
• Manage integration of renewable energy into the grid, deploying advanced power and energy management systems to optimize operations.

Sources:
1. British Geographical Society
2. The UK’s plans and progress to reach net zero by 2050 
3. SSE Renewables
4. Onshore Wind Taskforce Strategy
5. Green Volt
6. New UK government plans big push on wind
7. IEA

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