Two offshore converter stations for Ørsted’s Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm have been successfully installed.
Ørsted’s Hornsea 3 wind farm, located 75 miles off the county’s coastline, has taken another step closer to completion.
The two converter stations will transform clean power generated by the wind farm’s turbines before it is sent to the UK via cables.
Once complete next year, the £8.5 billion wind farm will power more than three million UK homes.
The converter stations are made up of a jacket piled into the seabed, with a topside operating platform sitting above.
The jacket for the second station will stand in 37 metres of water - five metres deeper than the first - making the structure six metres taller at 60 metres, taller than the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Although it sits deeper, the second station remains the same height in total at 70 metres above sea level.
Luke Bridgman, managing director of Hornsea 3 at Ørsted, said: “Adapting these massive structures to the specifics of their underwater sites and then successfully installing them is an incredible feat of engineering and a testament to the high level of collaboration across many different companies.
“Altogether, the design, transportation and installation of our offshore converter stations took four and a half years and many thousands of skilled workers.”
The jackets were designed and fabricated by Heerema Fabrication Group at its yard facilities in Vlissingen, Netherlands.
The topsides were built in Map Ta Phut, Thailand, before being sailed more than 13,000 nautical miles to Haugesund, Norway, for the installation and commissioning of high voltage equipment.
Heerema Marine Contractors was responsible for the transport and installation.
