Dogger Bank goes online with first Haliade-X wind turbine
The uprated Haliade-X 13 MW wind turbine begins commercial operation, supplying cleaner electricity to UK customers as the island nation moves toward a carbon-neutral future.
Overview
In its quest to achieve carbon-neutral energy generation by 2050, the first GE Haliade-X turbine began operating at the UK’s largest off-shore wind farm.
The challenge
As a signatory to the 2016 Paris Agreement, the United Kingdom is obligated to reduce its carbon footprint by the middle of the 21st century. With a large percentage of its electricity generated via traditional sources (like burning coal and peat)—combined with limited geography—the UK faces an uphill battle in its efforts to mitigate climate change.
The solution
The world’s largest off-shore wind farm project—Dogger Bank, in the North Sea—achieved a major milestone in October 2023 when the first of its projected 277 total GE Vernova Haliade-X wind turbines became operational. The large wind turbine generates 13 MW of electricity to customers in nearby Yorkshire.
Outcomes
Dogger Bank—a large part of the UK’s carbon-neutral energy strategy
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Dogger Bank… demonstrates the best of what the offshore wind industry can offer, with innovative technologies, long-term jobs and economic growth and security of electricity supply at a major scale. First power from Dogger Bank is a testament to the collaboration between the authorities, the project partners, suppliers, and our host communities.
Anders Opedal
Chief Executive Officer, Equinor
Located 62 miles (100 km) off the east coast of England is Dogger Bank, a sandbank in the North Sea that is believed to have once been part of a land mass connecting the British Isles with mainland Europe.
Long known as a productive commercial fishing region, in the past decade it has also become the epicenter of a project aimed at helping the UK meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement.
The Dogger Bank offshore wind farm is projected to be the largest such enterprise ever constructed. When completed, the farm will boast 277 wind turbines as tall as New York City’s famed Rockefeller Center and satisfy as much as 5% of the UK’s overall electricity demand.
While an undoubtedly monumental undertaking, the project achieved a major milestone in October 2023 when the first of its GE Vernova Haliade-X wind turbines began operation. The turbine’s activation is significant for both the Dogger Bank project and the turbine itself, as it became the first Haliade-X to produce energy offshore anywhere in the world. (A prototype Haliade-X has operated onshore in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, since 2020.)
Not only does this activation pave the way for the additional Haliade-X turbines at Dogger Bank, it also serves as proof of operation for other offshore projects planning to use the turbines—including the Vineyard Wind and Ocean Wind I projects in the United States.
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