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ScottishPower Renewables opens East Anglia ONE base

By: Tom Russell 18/10/2019 4C Offshore

General Ports Windfarms

ScottishPower Renewables has officially opened its East Anglia ONE offshore wind farm operations and maintenance base today (18 October 2019). The base has been constructed adjacent to Hamilton Dock in the Port of Lowestoft, and will support the wind farm during its construction and 30 year operational lifecycle.

The agreement for the base to be constructed at Associated British Port’s Lowestoft Port was announced in November 2015, when the site was just an area of scrub land on the edge of the port. Construction of the building began in July 2018, with the ground officially being broken by Waveney MP, Peter Aldous, and is part of a £25 million investment made by ScottishPower Renewables into the Port of Lowestoft. The new faciltiy will be the base for up to 100 full-time employees.

Civil engineering firm NRS Group was appointed to design and construct the base which features warehousing and office faculties. McLaughlin & Harvey was commissioned to design and construct pontoons and land-side utilities to support crew transfer vessel operation from Hamilton Dock.

Charlie Jordan, ScottishPower Renewables Project Director for East Anglia ONE, said: “Lowestoft is the home of East Anglia ONE, and to see the operations and maintenance building fully up and running really demonstrates that fact. It’s not just the base of operations for the windfarm, but a symbol of our long-term commitment to the region and our drive to grow the offshore wind industry in Lowestoft and East Anglia.

“In just 14 months, the construction team have turned an empty site on thePort of Lowestoftinto a state-of-the-art establishment and we are grateful for all of the work which has made the base into what you see today. Most of the operations and maintenance team are based within a few miles of the site and have worked on other local windfarms, bringing with them great knowledge and expertise. This has allowed us to perfect design elements of the base, making it super-efficient and reinforcing the East of England’s leading position in the sector.

“With the windfarm due to be complete next year, the building is already buzzing with local employees and contractors all helping us to create clean, green energy to meet the UK’s carbon reduction targets.”

Waveney MP, Peter Aldous, said: “The opening of theEast Anglia ONEoperations and maintenance base is a big moment for Lowestoft and the wider Waveney area. It demonstrates a significant investment in our town. East Anglia ONE is providing important job opportunities for people locally and across the region, both offshore and onshore, as well as through the local supply chain.

“Lowestoft has a proud maritime heritage and the substantial growth of the offshore wind industry, particularly off the coast of East Anglia, will see more generations making a career out at sea. It is great to see Lowestoft leading the way in the UK’s offshore wind revolution.”
One of the key elements of the buildings design as Charlie mentioned is its careful attention to workflow which has already received high praise from industry experts. The building has direct access to the quayside and the dedicated pontoon for the East Anglia ONE vessels, which ScottishPower believes has "future proofed" it ready to take on East Anglia Three and East Anglia Two.

The East Anglia ONE offshore wind farm is currently under construction, and is anticipated to be fully commissioned in 2020. Currently several of the turbines are now producing electricity that is being fed into the National Grid. When complete the project will have a 714 MW capacity, featuring 102 Siemens Gamesa SWT-7.0-154 wind turbines.

The turbines are being pre-assembled and loaded out from Peel Ports Great Yarmouth prior to installation at the wind farm site 43km from the coast. Each 7MW Siemens Gamesa wind turbine consists of three, 75-metre fibre glass blades, a 90 metre-high tower and a nacelle. The project exported first power last month and exported power to the onshore substation at Burstall, near Bramford in Suffolk. When completed, it is expected to meet the energy demands of 600,000 British households annually.

East Anglia ONE is the first of four projects ScottishPower Renewables is developing in the East Anglia region to begin construction. The next project closest to realisation is the East Anglia THREE offshore wind farm, which is expected to reach a Final Investment Decision in mid-2020, provided it secures a CfD in the 2019 auction. The company is also in the process of planning consultations on two other offshore wind farms in the East Anglia zone. If consents are granted, it is anticipated that East Anglia TWO will commence construction in 2024 and East Anglia ONE North will commence construction in 2025.

For more information on offshore wind farms, click here. Alternatively, you can view projects across the globe using 4C Offshore's interactive map.

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ScottishPower Renewables opens East Anglia ONE base

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