Delivering for people and businesses

Dogger Bank Wind Farm is fully committed to supporting the UK offshore wind supply chain. To date we estimate more than 2,000 UK roles have been created or supported in relation to the construction and operation of the wind farm.

SSE Renewables is leading on the construction and delivery of all three phases and Equinor will operate Dogger Bank on completion for its anticipated lifetime of up to 35 years, creating over 200 direct full-time operations jobs at a specially-developed operations base at Port of Tyne in the North East of England.

A Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project

Dogger Bank Wind Farm was granted consent as a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project in 2015 and  successfully secured 15-year contracts (CfDs) for 3.6GW of new offshore wind energy in the UK Government’s auction for low carbon power in 2019.

Dogger Bank A and Dogger Bank B reached financial close in November 2020 at competitive terms underlining the attractiveness of the UK offshore wind assets and the confidence in the joint venture, while Dogger Bank C reached financial close in December 2021.

Taken in aggregate, reaching Financial Close on all three phases of Dogger Bank Wind Farm is the largest offshore wind project financing to date globally.

Construction is underway and setting records

Through our construction of Dogger Bank, we’re setting the global standard for the delivery of new offshore wind energy projects and we're utilising some of the world’s largest turbines and the world's largest installation vessel to provide the UK’s largest single source of renewable energy.

We're installing the most powerful offshore wind turbine in operation today, GE’s Haliade-X, the first of which have been installed and which began generating electricity in October 2023.

Ours was the first order for the Haliade-X, which saw the ground-breaking turbine installed for the first time anywhere in the world. Each turbine has a power output of up to 14MW and one rotation of the turbine blades can power one UK home for more than two days.

Onshore construction began in 2020 and is now underway for all three phases, while offshore construction on Dogger Bank A began in Spring 2022. First power is expected in Summer 2023 for Dogger Bank A with commercial operations to follow in 2024. On Dogger Bank B, first power is expected in 2024 with commercial operations due in 2025. Dogger Bank C is due to enter commercial operations in 2026, marking the completion of the overall wind farm.

For the world's largest turbines, we are using the world’s largest jack-up installation vessel, the Voltaire operated by Jan de Nuul. This new, state-of-the-art vessel has a lifting capacity of 3,000 tonnes.

The UK's first offshore wind HVDC connection

The electricity generated by the turbines at Dogger Bank, which are between 130km and over 200km from shore, will be transmitted to shore via subsea cables.

Due to the distance of each of the phases offshore, Dogger Bank will be the first wind farm in the UK to utilise an HVDC connection. More typically used on interconnectors to transfer power between countries, the HVDC connection will ensure the energy being transmitted over the long distances from Dogger Bank offshore to the onshore grid connections in England’s East Riding and Teesside will be achieved efficiently while minimising losses.

Dogger Bank A is around 515km² in size and is 131km from shore at its closest point. Dogger Bank B is the largest in area with a size of 599km² and is also 131km from shore at its nearest point.

The electricity from both will come ashore via subsea cables at Ulrome, in the East Riding area of Yorkshire, connecting to underground cables for a further 30km to the Creyke Beck substation near Cottingham, where the electricity will join the national grid.

Dogger Bank C is around 560km² in size and at its closest point is 196km from shore. The project will connect to the national grid at the existing Lackenby Substation in Teesside.

Locally designed and sustainable O&M Base

The Port of Tyne was selected as the location of the new multi-million-pound Operations and Maintenance (O&M) Base that will serve the world’s biggest offshore wind farm.

The locally designed and sustainable O&M Base is the heart of Dogger Bank operations. It serves as the main hub for operating Dogger Bank and will become home to over 200 employees. Some roles will be based onshore, such as planners, engineers and management, while other roles such as wind turbine technicians will be based offshore at the wind farm itself, living for two weeks at a time on specially-commissioned vessels over 130km out to sea.

As well as offices and a warehouse to store wind farm spare parts, the Base includes a new quay for the state-of-the-art Service Operations Vessels (SOVs) that provide accommodation and transport for technicians to and from the wind farm. The vessels will come to the port twice a month for resupply and crew change.

Working with international design practice Ryder Architecture, headquartered in Newcastle, operations lead Equinor has designed the O&M Base to be built using environmentally friendly materials. EV chargers, solar panels and efficient heating systems have been included to ensure the facility has a low carbon impact.

^6 million homes powered per annum based on Typical Domestic Consumption Values (Medium Electricity Profile Class 1, 2,900kWh per household; OFGEM, January 2021), typical 55% wind load factor, and projected installed capacity of 3.6GW.