Plans to power green hydrogen production from a fourth phase of the world’s largest offshore wind farm have been scrapped after developers decided to focus solely on feeding electricity grids.
The proposed Dogger Bank D project was unveiled a year ago by partners SSE and Equinor, with plans to add up to another 2GW of turbines to the 3.6GW already being built at the giant UK North Sea wind farm.
Co-developers SSE Renewables and Equinor said then that using the turbines to power what would be Britain's largest green H2 plant onshore was one option for the fourth phase, with connection to the UK grid the other possible route for its electricity.
The partners said today (Friday) that Dogger Bank D has now secured a grid connection location in Yorkshire, northeast England, and is also looking at possible hybrid interconnection with a European electricity market for the new capacity.
“With the confirmation of an onshore grid connection location in the East Riding of Yorkshire, the option to direct the wind energy produced by Dogger Bank D towards hydrogen production, as publicly consulted on in Autumn 2023, has been retired from the project,” said SSE and Equinor.
“With the location of a grid connection confirmed, Dogger Bank D will now focus its full attention on connecting to the electrical transmission system.”
The project had gone as far as announcing green hydrogen feasibility projects for Dogger Bank D as recently as December last year.
An updated proposal for the project will be published later this month, said the developers, who will now start consulting with local communities over the planned grid connection.
Work started earlier this year to install giant Haliade-X 13MW turbines at the 1.2GW Dogger Bank A project, which was due to be fully online this year but will not now be completed until 2025 due to weather, vessel and supply chain delays.
The first three Dogger Bank phases will when fully built-out at a cost of some £11bn ($14bn) supply enough power for six million UK homes, making the project a new benchmark in the ambition of the global offshore wind sector.
