ScottishPower Renewables and Ørsted are celebrating a decade of delivery in offshore wind as West of Duddon Sands windfarm marks its tenth year of operation.
Built and operated as a 50/50 partnership, the 389MW West of Duddon Sands windfarm was brought to life in 2014, with its 108 Siemens 3.6MW turbines powering a cleaner and greener future from the Irish Sea, around 14km off the Cumbrian coastline.
Over the last ten years, it has produced enough renewable energy to power the equivalent of around 340,000 homes each year – that’s the same as the size of the city of Leeds.
The project marked investment of more than £1 billion and supported more than 1,000 jobs at peak construction, with around 40 long-term skilled jobs created at its operations and maintenance base in Barrow-in Furness.
It also supported multi-million investment, jobs and growth at Belfast Harbour – the first purpose-built offshore wind installation and pre-assembly harbour in the UK and Ireland.
As its first-ever offshore windfarm, it has cemented its place in Iberdrola history and paved the way for ScottishPower to become one of the biggest players in the UK’s offshore wind market today, with an operational portfolio of more than 1GW and a pipeline of more than 10GW.
Charlie Jordan, ScottishPower Renewables CEO, knows the project only too well as he led on its development and construction for ScottishPower between 2009 and 2014. He said: “West of Duddon Sands was quite literally our first toe in the waters of offshore wind. It’s been amazing to see how that part of our business has grown over the last ten years and how the focus on powering our lives with clean, green energy has shifted.
“It’s no coincidence that only two years after we opened our first offshore windfarm, ScottishPower closed its coal-fired power stations and became the first major UK energy company to only generate 100% green energy.
“We’ve also helped drive the ambition and innovation that is the hallmark of the offshore wind industry today, where the turbines we’re installing have more than four times the capacity of West of Duddon Sands and we’re taking our projects into deeper waters than ever before.
“None of that would be possible if it wasn’t for West of Duddon Sands and it will always have a special place in our hearts for being the windfarm that started our offshore journey – and set the scene for what’s to come.”
For Ørsted, the UK’s leading offshore wind company, West of Duddon Sands forms part of Ørsted’s UK fleet of 12 offshore windfarms – collectively capable of powering more than six million homes.
West of Duddon Sands also marks a milestone in the advancing construction technology of offshore wind. At the time of construction, the windfarm benefitted from using two of the world’s largest and most advanced vessels to install the foundations and turbine components, allowing work to continue offshore during one of the worst winters for storm force winds.
Emma Ford, Head of West Coast Generation at Ørsted, said: “We’re very proud of our west coast offshore windfarms and the role they have played in shaping the industry of today. Windfarms like West of Duddon Sands continue to make a significant contribution to the nation’s supply of renewable energy and have played an important role in the shift away from fossil fuels to clean energy.
“The 10th birthday of West of Duddon Sands presents the opportunity to reflect on how far we have come as an industry and how early projects have laid the pathway for the new generation of offshore windfarms. Offshore wind has become one of the cheapest forms of energy generation, in part thanks to advances in technology and scale, but also thanks to the skills, knowledge and expertise of the people who work on the projects.”