East Anglia's offshore wind industry remains confident

Companies across the sector said they remain confident of growth in both revenue and employment over the short, medium, and long term, in response to a survey by the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult.

Wind turbines at East Anglia's biggest offshore wind project, East Anglia ONE (Image: Submitted)

And although the research also found overall confidence had declined since last year’s survey, reflecting tough market conditions, those in the industry said they had been buoyed by the government’s announcement of a significant increase in the administrative strike price for the next CfD allocation round.

There had been concerns for the future of offshore wind after the government auction earlier this year failed to attract a single bidder from the sector, due to the price being set too low to offset cost pressures. 

EAST ANGLIA’S CONTRIBUTION

At the heart of England’s largest offshore wind clusters, East Anglia is one of the most important regions in the country when it comes to producing green energy.

Around 44pc of the UK’s fleet of offshore turbines are along our coastline, with a whopping 5GW of installed capacity.

Wind turbines at East Anglia's biggest offshore wind project, East Anglia ONE (Image: Newsquest)

Norfolk’s largest project, East Anglia ONE, gives us an insight as to the scale of the region’s growing sector.

KEY STATS 

• East Anglia ONE alone helps avoid the emission of 922,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, powering more than 630,000 homes 
• It’s tallest turbine is 167 metres, generating around 7 MW and 
• There are two transmission cables, each nearly 85 km long, which connect to a further six underground cables hooked up to the national grid.
• More than 100 permanent operations and maintenance staff keep the blades spinning from its Lowestoft base

RECORD BREAKING CAPACITY

More records will be broken in East Anglia in the next few years when energy giant Orsted predicts it will finish its biggest project yet off the coast of north Norfolk.

The £8bn Hornsea 3 project - 75 miles from Cromer - will be the world's largest single offshore wind farm, producing enough energy to power three million homes in the UK. 

Orsted confirmed it will go ahead with Hornsea 3 wind farm (Image: Newsquest) (Image: Newsquest)

There had been concerns the firm would scrap the project due to spiralling costs, but this week it announced it would go ahead with the scheme after it confirmed it had reached a deal over its future pricing arrangements.

This will see it ditch part of the contract it secured from the government last year to supply power from the project at a record low price to consumers.

It now plans to seek a new contract at a higher price in respect of a quarter of the wind farm after the government confirmed that more generous contracts would be on offer next year.

A map of the Horsea Three cable path - from the wind farm area in the North Sea, and south through Norfolk to the substation just south of Norwich (Image: Newsquest) (Image: Newsquest)

The Hornsea 3 scheme will see 231 offshore turbines built off the coast of Norfolk, with a total capacity of 2.9 GW - more than double the world's current largest wind farm, Hornsea 2, which is in the same cluster site.

The project will also support up to 5,000 jobs during its construction phase, with up to a further 1,200 permanent jobs both directly and in the supply chain while the farm is operational.

The next largest, Hornsea 1, is also off the Norfolk coast, boasting 174 turbines and a capacity of 1.2 GW. 

Major construction work, which will see trenches for wind farm cables dug in Norfolk, started in September (Image: Mike Page) (Image: Mike Page)

While Hornsea 3 is set to hold the title for the world's largest single offshore wind farm, the overall cluster falls just short of the Dogger Bank wind farm, where three adjacent sites have a combined capacity of 3.6GW.