This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
INDUSTRY ARTICLE


FOREWIND AND THE DOGGER BANK ZONE


THE WORLD’S LARGEST OFFSHORE WIND DEVELOPMENT Forewind, a consortium comprising four leading international energy companies – RWE, SSE, Statkraft and Statoil – is developing the world’s largest offshore wind energy project at Dogger Bank, 125 kilometres off the UK coast.


THE CROWN ESTATE’S ROUND 3 PROCESS, 2009 – THE BACKGROUND Rewinding to the start of The Crown Estate’s Round 3 process in 2009, nine offshore wind energy development zones were identified; with the aim that they will have the generation capacity to deliver a quarter of the UK’s total electricity needs by 2020.


DEVELOPMENT PARTNER - FOREWIND In January 2010, Forewind was announced as development partner for Dogger Bank, the largest of the zones. Located between 125 and 290 kilometres off the east coast of Yorkshire, the zone extends over approximately 8660 km2 and with water depths ranging from 18 to 63 metres, it is also one of the shallowest.


10 PER CENT OF THE UK’S PROJECTED ELECTRICITY REQUIREMENTS Forewind General Manager, Dr Lee Clarke says that the organisation has the objective to achieve consent for an agreed target installed capacity of 9GW of offshore wind farm projects by 2020 which equates to almost 10 per cent of the UK’s projected electricity requirements. If fully developed, it will be the world’s largest offshore wind project.


Forewind will continue to liaise with all key stakeholder groups including local fishermen.


“The Dogger Bank project heralds a completely new era for offshore wind due to its huge size and distance from shore,” Dr Clarke said. “This means there are many technical


and logistical challenges to be addressed. Forewind will draw fully on the experience of each of the owner companies and also look for innovative suppliers and


contractors to help meet the challenges and achieve consent.”


GRID The key link in any wind farm project is the grid connection, where the power generated by the wind farm feeds into the national grid system.


In March 2010 Forewind signed a connection agreement for the first project, to connect at Creyke Beck, north of the Humber Estuary. In October 2011, Forewind signed two more connection agreements for an additional two projects likely to be located at an existing National Grid substation site at Lackenby, east of Middlesbrough.


More recently, in March 2012, Forewind announced the signing of a further 3GW grid connections. One of those will connect at Creyke Beck, the site of the first grid connection agreement. The remaining two connections will be located in Teesside at a site, to be finalised.


Dr Clarke said that the agreements with the National Grid have enabled Forewind to proceed with the development of six offshore wind farm projects totalling up to 7.2GW.


“This could feasibly generate as much green energy per year as the total amount of electricity used annually by homes and industry in Yorkshire and the Humber,” he said.


www.windenergynetwork.co.uk


05


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108