Offshore heavy lift for East Anglia THREE

ScottishPower Renewables’ first-ever high voltage direct current (HVDC) offshore converter station has been successfully installed at the 1.4 GW capacity offshore wind farm East Anglia THREE, currently under construction.

The HVDC station will convert electricity from the direct current produced by the farm’s 95 Siemens Gamesa wind turbines into the high-voltage direct current used for transmitting it 69 km back to the Suffolk coast, when the farm comes online in 2026.

‘HVDC enables efficient long-distance power transmission with reduced losses, supporting the UK’s grid stability,’ says Darren Davidson, Vice President of Siemens Energy UK&I, a partner to developer Iberdrola and Masdar, which took a 50% stake in the £4bn project in July 2025.

The 10,700 tonne, seven-storey structure measures 70 metres long, 34 metres wide and 48 metres high, making it heavier than the Eiffel Tower and taller than the Statue of Liberty.

The installation process was completed by Heerema Marine Contractors’ SSCV Sleipnir, which had already installed the offshore jacket foundations for the project earlier in the summer. Fabrication of the module was completed in Mangalia, Romania in mid-2024, after which it sailed over 3,800 nautical miles to Aker Solutions’ fabrication yard in Stord, Norway, for completion.

The farm’s 95 Siemens Gamesa wind turbines are each 14.7 MW capacity.

Inch Cape’s first subsea cable laid

The first of Inch Cape offshore wind farm’s two 85-km offshore export cables has been installed off the east coast of Scotland. Once operational, it will transmit power from the 1.1 GW wind farm to the project’s new onshore substation under construction at Cockenzie, East Lothian.

The 220 kV, three-phase cable was installed in three 28-km sections by Enshore Subsea using the CMOS Installer cable lay vessel operating from the Port of Blyth.

Manufactured by Ningbo Orient Wires & Cables (Orient Cable), the 2,000 mm² cable is among the largest alternating current (AC) export cables in the world. The cable required two offshore joints which were completed using North Sea Giant and will shortly be buried in the seabed.

The offshore substation platform has already been installed. The first of its XXL monopiles have been delivered to the Port of Leith. Next year will see the project’s monopile and jacket foundations installed along with the first of 72 Vestas 15 MW turbines and the completion of the onshore substation.

The second 85-km export cable will also be installed by Enshore Subsea in three 28-km sections during a later campaign in 2026.

Aerial view of CMOS Installer next to the Inch Cape offshore substation platform

Photo: Inch Cape Wind 
 

Dutch utility completes first tranche of offshore wind connections, with bigger plans to come

Dutch-German electricity utility TenneT has completed its 700 MW offshore wind programme with Hollandse Kust (west Beta). It will be used for the 795 MW/3 TWh OranjeWind wind farm to begin construction in 2026 by operator RWE and TotalEnergies.

For TenneT, the project marks the last of seven standardised 700 MW grid connections for offshore wind farms in a project stretching back to 2019. To connect the offshore wind farms to the national high-voltage grid, TenneT built ‘offshore sockets’, which are connected to the onshore high-voltage grid via electricity cables buried in the seabed.

TenneT constructed the last three 700 MW power outlets for the Hollandse Kust (North), (West Alpha) and (West Beta) wind zones off the coast of North Holland. Partners included the contractor consortium Equans/Smulders, which built the platforms in the Netherlands and Belgium.

With these 700 MW connections, there will be a total installed capacity of 6.1 GW in the Dutch part of the North Sea by 2028. The national government aims to expand this capacity to 21 GW by 2032. To this end, TenneT, in collaboration with the market, developed the 2 GW programme as a new standard. These new offshore wind farms will be connected via direct current (DC) connections to reduce energy losses, as they are located further offshore.

Between now and 2032, 13 of these new connections will be built in the Dutch and German North Sea.

TenneT ‘offshore socket’ connecting to subsea cable for the 700 MW Hollandse Kust (west Beta) offshore wind programme  

Photo: TenneT