Maintenance hub to service North Sea windfarms

The facility for offshore wind turbines in Grimsby will create 200 jobs

Danish company Dong Energy is to build the world’s largest operations and maintenance hub for offshore wind turbines in Grimsby, creating 200 jobs.

The hub will be staffed by technicians and engineers, who will monitor and maintain three windfarms: Westermost Rough, Race Bank and Hornsea Project One. Dong Energy said the hub will cost up to £20 million, and be opened in March 2018.

Dong Energy’s UK chairman Brent Cheshire said: “This operational hub will be a game-changing industry first, raising the bar for the way we serve offshore windfarms. It represents a massive vote of confidence in the UK offshore wind industry and confirms our commitment to the Humber region, where by 2019 we expect to have invested £6 billion.” 

Around 171 Siemens 7MW-capacity wind turbines are being built for the first phase of the Hornsea windfarm. Last month the government approved plans for Dong Energy to build the second phase of the windfarm off the coast of Yorkshire, which could add another 300 turbines and 1.8GW of electricity generating capacity.

The total proposed development at the offshore site is for up to 6GW of generating capacity.

The hub will use ships designed by Rolls-Royce and built by Norwegian shipbuilder Østensjø Rederi to transport maintenance crews to wind turbines up to 120km offshore. Each ship will be able to carry 60 crew and is equipped to stay at sea for up to thirty days at a time because of the need to go so far from the shore.

Dong Energy said the bespoke ships are expected to “set the blueprint” for the way in which offshore windfarms are maintained in future, offering safety and operational efficiency benefits. They will incorporate a containerised warehouse for the storage of equipment spares, tools and consumables.