Dudgeon project halfway to completion
The Dudgeon installations are progressing according to plan. Almost half of the foundations have been installed, the export cables have been laid and in May the substation jacket was lifted in place.
The jacket leaving the yard SLP, heading for the Dudgeon-bank
(Photo: CHPV/Statoil)
The steel jacket for the offshore substation is in place.
(Photo: Stâle Øvretveit/Statoil)
Pull in of export cable no 2.
(Photo: CHPV/Statoil)
Necton, where electricity from Dudgeon meets the national grid.
(Photo: Ole Jørgen Bratland/Statoil)
The first monopile foundation was installed and fixed to the seabed by the crane vessel Oleg Strashnov on the Dudgeon bank, 32 kilometers from the coastal town of Cromer. In total, 67 turbines will be installed as part of the project, as well as one 1,000-ton offshore substation.
“The project is really starting to become visible and the Dudgeon Bank is no longer an untouched area,” says Dudgeon project director Olav-Bernt Haga. The Dudgeon project celebrated Norway’s Constitution Day by installing the substation jacket on the field on 17 May. Built by SLP in Lowestoft the jacket was installed by the Stanislav Yudin vessel.The topside, which constitutes the substation, was constructed by the same yard and will be ready for installation in August. This operation will be performed by Oleg Strashnov, the same vessel which is currently installing the foundations – the huge monopiles and the transition pieces - for the towers and turbines that will arrive later.
”We have had good progress. They are installing an average of three foundations per week, but in this area we are of course at the mercy of the weather,“ says Svein Aage Gurrik, who is in charge of the Dudgeon project’s marine operations.
In May the second and last export cable reached the jacket after having been pulled from the landfall in Weybourne.
Cables between the wind turbines and the substation are now to be laid. Electricity will be transmitted through export cables from the substation to the Weybourne landfall, and then by onshore underground cables to Necton where it will be transformed once more before it enters the National Grid. The onshore activity is also high: the Necton substation is almost completed, and cable-laying from Weybourne to Necton is about to be finished.
Great Yarmouth is hiring operations personnel and September sees the opening of a new office building and base, together with a naming ceremony for the service vessel from Esvagt to be used in the Dudgeon operating phase.
”We have many ongoing activities at the moment, and fortunately most of them are proceeding as planned. The project has not had any serious injuries,“ says Haga.
For further information please contact:
Elin Isaksen
Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm project
T:+47 480 91193
E: media@dudgeonoffshorewind.co.uk
or
Nigel Tompkins [the Norfolk contact for media and community enquiries].
New Ideas for Business
T: 01263 822427
M: 07860 206565
E: nigel@ni4b.co.uk
Issue date: 02-06-16