Offshore firms Equinor and SSE Renewables have hailed the opening of a new Tyneside base that will serve the UK's largest wind farm.
International representatives of the companies and the wider offshore wind supply chain were at the Port of Tyne to formally open the Dogger Bank Operations and Maintenance base that will host an estimated 400 jobs and a central operations control room for the wind farm. The partners say recruitment has so far been encouraging with offshore workers being encouraged to return to the region.
As part of the project, the Ryder Architecture-designed Port of Tyne building will store components and spares that will be shipped directly to Dogger Bank Wind Farm about 130km off the North East coast. The river itself will also be home to four huge "floating hotel" support vessels built by Aberdeen-based Northstar, which will house workers when out at the site.
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Speaking to BusinessLive, Equinor's executive vice president of renewables, Pål Eitrheim, said the Tyne was the ideal location from which to service Dogger Bank. He said: "Logistically, it's perfect. It's served by the River Tyne and has a long industrial tradition. It's used to running logistics in and out and it's also a port area with very high ambitions for developing renewables into a new industry. It ticks a lot of the boxes including access to sea and the land area to actually build these facilities."
The wind farm, which is under construction and due to produce its first power this summer, will be the world's largest boasting the most powerful turbines - each capable of powering the average UK household for two days with just one rotation of their blades.
It will take about three years for the project to full ramp up and all of the operations will be managed from the new Port of Tyne facility for the wind farm's 35-40 year lifespan. Once fully operational the wind farm - made up of three phases with potential for a fourth - is expected to generate 3.6GW of energy, about 5% of the UK's entire requirement.
Norway-based Equinor has drawn anger from climate campaigners who protested its London base earlier this year as £23bn profits were revealed amid plans to develop Rosebank, an oil and gas field off the coast of the Shetland Islands. Mr Eitrheim said the firm was taking renewables seriously with the aim to make more than 50% of its gross investments into low carbon energy by 2030.
Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, Graham Stuart attended the Port of Tyne opening ceremony and met with the joint venture partners privately. He told delegates at the event the Government's Contract's for Difference scheme had made the UK one of the most hospitable places in the world for offshore wind development and had "transformed the economics" of the sector.
Speaking separately to BusinessLive, Mr Stuart, said that while oil and gas was "not the enemy", the Government wanted to move quickly to reduce demand. He said: "We've led the world in cutting emissions - faster than any other G7 economy - I'm proud of that. This Government has gone from just 7% of our electricity coming from renewables in 2010, to now well over 40%. If you take offshore wind, we want to quadruple what we've got today because we're already the world leader. We're going to move from around 15GW today to 50GW by 2030.
"I don't think there's any government in the world moving quicker on renewables. Equally, we need a grown up conversation that recognises we're going to need oil and gas for decades to come. If we can produce our own to ever higher environmental production standards then we should do so because its not environmentally sensible to be importing tankers of liquid natural gas from abroad with more than double the production emissions attached to them."
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