The Hornsea 2 wind farm is now fully operational and ready to help power around 1.3 million UK homes. With 165 turbines covering an area of 462 square kilometers, more than half the size of New York City, it is officially the largest offshore wind farm on the planet. Each of the 165 turbines rises about 200 meters above the sea, and each of the three blades stretches 81 meters wide.
“One revolution of wind turbine blades can power an average UK house for 24 hours,” the company says.
The Hornsea 2 wind farm project that generated its first power in December 2021 and has already announced that it is operating at full capacity. In fact, it’s already fully on.
Hornsea 2 boasts the world’s largest offshore AC substation and also has a Reactive Compensation Station (RCS).
This is an important milestone, not just in the UK, but globally, for offshore wind power and renewables in general. And it’s just the beginning, as Ørsted, not counting other offshore wind developers around the world, has 8.9 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind power in operation , about 2.2 GW under construction, and about 11 GW capacity awarded under development. Ørsted’s goal is to install 30 GW of offshore wind power by 2030 on a global scale. It is not a trivial figure.
“Current world events highlight more than ever the importance of flagship renewable energy projects like Hornsea 2, which help the UK increase the security and resilience of its energy supply and reduce costs for consumers by reducing reliance on energy. from expensive fossil fuels,” said Duncan Clark, head of the UK region at Orsted.
The biggest for a short time
The competition in this field is quite interesting. The Dogger Bank wind farm, due to start operations next year, will be able to power a whopping 6 million homes, more than four times the number powered by Hornsea 2, unseating Hornsea 2 as the largest offshore wind farm. of the world.
Seagreen, 27km off the coast of Angus in Scotland, is also another of the offshore wind farms on the market. The first turbine, out of a total of 114, was commissioned in August 2022 and the goal is for the 1,075 MW park to be fully operational in the first half of 2023. The $4.3 billion Seagreen project will be the Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm and the world’s deepest fixed-bottom wind farm as it is being developed in 59 meters of water depth.
“We are delighted to announce the start of Seagreen power generation, our first offshore wind steps in the UK North Sea,” said Vincent Stoquart, Senior Vice President of Renewables at TotalEnergies, responsible for this power generation system. . “This marks a new step in the development of TotalEnergies’ offshore activities capacity. This milestone will directly contribute to our goal of reaching 35 GW of renewable electricity capacity worldwide by 2025.”
There are other large offshore wind projects in the pipeline globally, such as Ørsted’s Greater Changhua 1 & 2a in Taiwan, which is also expected to come online this year. Equinor and SSE’s 4.8 GW Dogger Bank, off the UK’s Yorkshire coast, is expected to become the world’s largest offshore wind farm by 2026.
Across the Atlantic , the United States has a long way to go to catch up with Europe. America’s first offshore wind facility, the 30-megawatt Block Island Wind Farm, began commercial operation at the end of 2016 but new projects seem to be underway to relaunch offshore wind.
It is a good step to reduce dependence on fossil fuels around the world, especially considering that Europe’s access to gas is being restricted by sanctions against Russia in light of the war in Ukraine started by Vladimir Putin.
Reference: Ørsted / Total Energies Press Releases 2022
