Rachel Beedie, East Anglia THREE foundations package manager at ScottishPower Renewables, explains why 2024 is a landmark year for the company.
At ScottishPower Renewables, we’re looking forward to a milestone year for our East Anglia THREE wind farm. Offshore construction is getting underway to bring what will be the world’s second largest wind farm to life over the next two years.
Located in the Southern North Sea – 69 kilometres off the Suffolk coast – East Anglia THREE will be our biggest operational offshore wind farm in the UK and will build on the huge success of our East Anglia ONE offshore wind farm, which came into operation in 2020.
Deploying the latest technology – with each of the 95 turbines having more than double the capacity of those on EA ONE – the wind farm will have a total capacity of 1,400MW. That’s enough green electricity to power the equivalent of more than 1.3 million homes.
Constructing the huge structures that will generate this clean energy is a mammoth feat of engineering, and it’s been really exciting to see fabrication of the foundations – designed by a UK-led team from Wood Thilsted – get underway in the first few weeks of this year.
We’ve seen the first steel cans rolled for the 45 monopiles being manufactured by Joint Venture Navantia Seanergies Windar Renovables (JVNW) and the 50 being manufactured by Haizea – as well as the first of the 95 transition pieces being produced by Windar Renovables transferred to its port facility for completion.
This means we are on track to see the first transition pieces completed by Windar around the end of Q1 and the first monopile completed by JVNW in early Q2.
That’s a massive achievement and a major milestone for the project – especially when we consider the size and scale of these structures.
The 14.7MW Siemens Gamesa turbines will have a tip height of up to 262 metres – that’s nearly 20 metres higher than the observation deck at the Shard in London.
Each monopile will be between 67 and 85 metres in length, up to 10.6 metres in diameter and weigh between 1,200 and 1,800 tonnes.
Every transition piece will be 20 metres in height, have a diameter of eight metres and weigh more than 400 tonnes.
It’s fantastic to be part of such an exciting phase of the project – quite literally putting all the building blocks in place to ensure East Anglia THREE can get to work as quickly as possible, producing more green electricity and delivering the jobs, investment and opportunities that come with that.
We’re definitely building the foundations for a cleaner and greener future.
For more information, visit spreastanglia.co.uk
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