A blog by SSE's Head of Wind Generation, Stephen Rose.
The offshore wind industry has grown into a major part of the UK’s energy mix.
The world’s first ever offshore wind farm, Vindeby, was commissioned in 1991 off the coast of Denmark. Each of the wind farm’s 11 turbines produced 450kW, meaning that the total maximum power of the wind farm could now be produced by a single 5MW turbine.
It wasn’t until late 2000 when the first offshore wind farm was commissioned in UK waters. The project, Blyth, comprised of two 2MW turbines, which at that time made them the most powerful offshore turbines in the world.
Seven years later, SSE first dipped its foot into the offshore wind pool with the Beatrice Demonstrator Project. The two 5MW turbines are owned by SSE and Talisman and were developed to examine the feasibility of creating a commercial wind farm in deep water and a reasonable distance from the shore.
A major milestone for SSE and their joint venture partner RWE Innogy was achieved six years later; the commissioning of Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Farm. This 140 turbine wind farm generates up to 500MW off the coast of Lowestoft in Suffolk and has been my base for the past seven years. Not only that, but Greater Gabbard was the largest wind farm under development world-wide for a number of years.
Shortly after opening Greater Gabbard, SSE’s continued interest in offshore wind were made clear with its investment in the Hunterston Offshore Wind Turbine Test Facility – the UK’s first onshore test site for offshore wind turbines. The Siemens 6MW turbine at the test facility has played an integral role in the development of the 7MW turbines that will be used at Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm Limited (BOWL).
A joint venture between SSE, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and SDIC, BOWL is one of the largest ever private investments in Scottish infrastructure. The project, located in the Outer Moray Firth, will see 84 7MW turbines generating up to 588MW, enough to power approximately 450,000 homes.
Transmission works in Moray commenced this year and next year work on the Operations and Maintenance base in Wick and offshore construction work is set to begin, with the project expected to become fully operational in 2019.
In 25 years, the offshore wind industry has grown from 450kW turbines close to shore to turbines which now produce nearly 20 times as much energy – like the recently announced 8MW turbines being developed by both Siemens and Vestas – and this progress is set to continue further still.
Generally the pipeline of new projects have much greater capacities and are increasingly located further offshore. For example Dogger Bank (which SSE owns in partnership with RWE Innogy, Statoil and Statkraft) is located over 130km from the coast and has a total potential installed capacity of 4.8GW across four projects.
These changing conditions will mean the offshore wind sector will have to continue to evolve to overcome new challenges, such as utilising innovative High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) technology to bring the power the greater distance back to shore.
Offshore wind will have a key role to play in a future, decarbonised energy mix. With the costs of offshore wind having already come down considerably and, with continued experience of deployment, set to fall further still, this technology can help ensure the UK has secure and affordable electricity whilst staying on track to meet climate change targets.
The offshore wind industry has certainly come along way, and as the industry has evolved , SSE has continued, not just to keep pace, but to play an important role in its development. And SSE has ambitions to continue as a key player in the UK’s future investment in offshore wind.