World’s largest offshore windfarm project starts powering UK grid
World’s largest offshore windfarm project starts powering UK grid | Energy industry | The Guardian
The first turbine to be completed in a project to build the world’s largest offshore windfarm, in the North Sea, has begun powering British homes and businesses.
Developers confirmed on Monday that Dogger Bank, which sits 70 nautical miles off the coast of Yorkshire, started producing power over the weekend as the first of 277 turbines was connected to the electricity grid.
The project, jointly developed by Britain’s SSE and Norway’s Equinor and Vårgrønn, will produce 3.6 gigawatts of power, enough for 6m homes a year, when it is completed in 2026.
Rishi Sunak said the project was “critical to generating renewable, efficient energy that can power British homes from British seas”.
The prime minister’s endorsement comes weeks after he drew heavy criticism from green campaigners for rowing back on net zero policies as he seeks to make the energy transition a key political battleground.
The government was also condemned last month when a disastrous energy auction saw no new offshore windfarms secure contracts despite there being the potential for 5GW of projects – enough to power 8m homes a year.
Keir Starmer, who will address the Labour party conference in Liverpool on Tuesday, has said Sunak’s lack of investment in wind power is a “gift to Putin, who has strangled the international gas market we are hooked to”.
The cost of material, labour and finance have risen sharply for windfarm developers over the past year. Earlier this year, the Swedish energy company Vattenfall said it would cease working on the multibillion-pound Norfolk Boreas windfarm because rising costs meant it was no longer profitable.
Sunak said the £9bn Dogger Bank development would “not only bolster our energy security but create jobs, lower electricity bills and keep us on track for net zero”.
Alistair Phillips-Davies, the chief executive of SSE, said: “There’s been lots of talk about the need to build homegrown energy supplies, but we are taking action on a massive scale.”
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The developers said each rotation of the 107-metre-long blades on Dogger Bank’s first turbine could produce enough energy to power an average British home for two days.
Last year, SSE switched on another huge wind project – Scotland’s largest offshore windfarm, Seagreen.
The surge in gas and electricity bills over the past two years, in part linked to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has thrown the spotlight on Britain’s domestic energy system.
The government has set a target to decarbonise the UK electricity system by 2035, while Labour has pledged to achieve the same feat by 2030. However, they face a considerable task to achieve those targets in a market currently reliant on fossil fuel power generation.
Related Knowledge Center: Offshore wind energy
Over the next decade, U.S. offshore wind power is expected to grow from a single 30-megawatt wind farm off Rhode Island to more than 2,000 MW of capacity along the Atlantic Seaboard. There are contracts for wind power off the coasts of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Maryland, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and Virginia.
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory has estimated the United States has over 4,000 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind potential, enough to power the country four times over.
The growth in part being spurred by state solicitations, including in New York, where then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) set a commitment of 9,000 MW of offshore wind by 2035, and in Connecticut, where in June 2021, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) signed legislation authorizing the construction of 2,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030.
The offshore development is also being driven by an investment tax credit set to end in December 2019 and is equal to 12 percent of expenditures. U.S. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Tom Carper (D-Del.) have introduced a bill to extend the tax credit for up to eight years.
The Interior Department has held eight competitive lease sales that resulted in 15 offshore wind leases over 1.7 million acres that has the potential for 21 GW of capacity. In February 2022, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management completed a bidding process that realized $4.37 billion for 488,000 acres across six lease areas in federal waters off New York and New Jersey.
Projects have also been proposed off the Southeast coast, off California and Hawaii, and for the Great Lakes.