Supply chain crunch likely to delay massive Dogger Bank A offshore wind farm

UK renewables firm SSE Renewables said in a trading statement that supply chain pressures could see the forecasted start of commercial operations at the 2400MW Dogger Bank A & B wind farm delayed to next year. 

The Q3 trading statement said turbine installation at Dogger Bank A had been impacted by “challenging weather conditions”, while “vessel availability and supply chain delays” were also impeding its progress. 

Dogger Bank A is currently being built in the North Sea, and forms part of the three-phase Dogger Bank wind cluster as part of Dogger Bank A and B and 1200MW Dogger Bank C . 

The Dogger Bank A and B cluster is owned 40% by SSE Renewables, 40% by Norwegian oil company Equinor and the remaining 20% by Italian oil firm Eni. 

Combined with Dogger Bank C, the megaproject will have a combined capacity of 3.6GW, making it the world’s largest wind farm by capacity on completion, and is expected to occupy an area almost as large as Greater London and nearly twice the size of New York City.

Dogger Bank A and B was previously expected to come online later this year, but SSE said the latest delays could see full operations pushed back to 2025. 

Unavailability of the specialist installation vessels needed to install the project’s 190 Haliade-X 13MW turbines from US manufacturer GE “in the coming weeks” was compounding existing supply chain and weather delays, it said. 

Dogger Bank delivered first power in October last year.