Next North Sea project planned

Planning consultation for potentially the world’s largest offshore wind farm – the Hornsea Project Three off the east coast of the UK – has been started by Dong Energy.

The company recently announced that it would be building Hornsea Project One.

Dong said that the Project Three wind farm would have a maximum capacity of 2.4GW, and if built out to full capacity, would be the world’s largest, capable of powering over 2 million UK homes.

Hornsea Project Three is located approximately 120km from the Yorkshire coast and is within the previous Hornsea zone boundary. The Hornsea zone has now been split into four areas allocated for offshore wind farm development.

The 1.2GW Hornsea Project One, which will be capable of powering well over 1 million UK homes, will become the world’s largest offshore wind farm when it becomes operational, which is expected to be in 2020.

Hornsea Project Two has recently finished the examination phase of the application for consent, and awaits a decision from the UK’s Secretary of State in June, 2016.

Brent Cheshire, Dong Energy UK’s country chairman, said, “Moving forward with consultation for Hornsea Project Three really underlines our commitment to the UK offshore wind industry.

“We have already invested around £5 billion (€6.35 billion) in the UK on offshore wind and we have a number of important future projects under construction and in our pipeline.”

Hornsea Project Three is now seeking to enter the planning process, with a consent application expected to be submitted in 2018. If this is successful, construction of the offshore wind farm is expected to take place between 2022 and 2025.

Hornsea Project Three is located to the east of Hornsea Project One and Hornsea Project Two, and spans an area of approximately 696km².