3/4/2022 – Greece’s Hellenic Cables recently reported two contracts, both related to Dogger Bank (A, B and C), the world’s largest offshore wind project, which is located in the North Sea, between 125 and 290 km off the east coast of Yorkshire.

Per Wikipedia, since 2017, Dogger Bank Wind Farm Ltd. has developed what is known as Dogger Bank A, B and C, while a fourth wind farm has been developed by Sofia Offshore Wind Farm Ltd. as Sofia Offshore Wind Farm.

A press release said that Hellenic Cables has been awarded the Dogger Bank C array cable contract by DEME Offshore, the renewables business unit of DEME Group. Already the designated supplier for Dogger Bank A and B, with this contract Hellenic Cables becomes the sole inter array cables’ supplier for the massive project.

Under the new contract, Hellenic Cables will supply some 240 km of 66 kV XLPE-insulated inter-array cables and associated accessories. This is in addition to 650 km of array cables already awarded for phases A & B. The cables will be produced at the company’s plant in Corinth, Greece. Production of the cables for Dogger Bank C is set to begin in 2023 and delivery will be a phased roll out in line with the project execution program.

“We’re proud to be the exclusive array cables supplier for the world’s largest offshore wind farm, which provides the U.K.’s largest single source of renewable energy,” said Alexis Alexiou, CEO of Cenergy Holdings and Hellenic Cables.

The second project, for the Sofia Offshore Wind Farm, is for RWE, a German energy firm that contracted Van Oord Offshore Wind UK to provide the engineering. The project calls for Hellenic Cables to supply some 360 km of 66 kV inter-array cables and accessories to the Sofia offshore wind farm. The company will also make the cables at its Corinth plant. Cable production is set to begin in 2022 and be completed in 2023. The cables will be installed by Van Oord’s cable-laying vessel, Nexus.

The 1.4 GW Sofia offshore wind farm is located 195 km from the nearest point on the U.K.’s North East coast on a site of 593 sq km. “Building on the expertise and know-how demonstrated in previous projects, such as the Hollandse Kust (South) project, our goal is to successfully implement this project as well. Together with our investment in the next-generation custom-built green cable-laying vessel Calypso, this highlights Van Oord’s drive to continuously reinforce its market position,” said Arnoud Kuis, managing director at Van Oord offshore wind.

The Dogger Bank is an attractive location for offshore wind farms because it is far away from shore, avoiding complaints about the sight of wind turbines, yet at a water depth shallow enough for traditional fixed foundation wind turbine designs to be deployed. Fixed-foundation wind turbines are economically limited to maximum water depths of 40 to 50 meters, whereas greater water depths require new floating wind turbine designs that cost significantly more to build. All four farms have a delivery date between 2023 and 2025.