DECC approves Dudgeon wind farm tweaks

The UK Government has approved an application for the Dudgeon offshore wind farm’s capacity to be reduced to around 400MW. The original consent for the project at 560MW was granted […]

The UK Government has approved an application for the Dudgeon offshore wind farm’s capacity to be reduced to around 400MW.

The original consent for the project at 560MW was granted last year but the changes were requested following a review of the site’s design after it was bought by Norwegian firms Statoil and Statkraft.

The study said it “raised concerns relating to the stability of the wind turbine foundations due to areas of mobile sand waves across the site and the chalk structure of the subsea bed”. It also showed that “in order to avoid the wake effects of placing the turbines too closely together”, the capacity of the wind farm should be reduced from 560MW to around 400MW, the firms said.

Halfdan Brustad, Dudgeon Offshore Wind Chairman said: “This approval… will enable us to take advantage of the technological developments made in the offshore wind sector made over the last few years and I now anticipate that the installed capacity of around 400MW will come from between just 50-80 wind turbines.”

Statkraft will take sole responsibility for the operations and maintenance of the project starting in January.

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