First electricity from Dogger Bank wind farm reaches England - credit: Climate Post - video Dailymotion

Shields Gazette

The Dogger Bank wind farm has started to produce electricity for the first time.

Transcript

00:00 [Music]

00:28 So today at Doggerbank Wind Farm we generated first power from the first turbines that have

00:34 been installed at the wind farm. So the first string of turbines has energised and provided

00:40 electricity into the national grid. This is a really amazing moment for our project. We've

00:45 been working for over 10 years with our project partners to get to this point and soon we will

00:50 be producing so much electricity that we will be able to control about five percent of UK's

00:55 electricity right from this facility behind me. And that's really significant because the

00:59 north east of England will be playing such an important role in providing security of supply

01:05 to UK electricity and helping the UK to meet its net zero goals. I think that this is a really proud

01:11 moment for the region. This will be the world's largest offshore wind farm when it's completed in

01:16 2026 and what we've been able to do with offshore wind all across the UK but also here in the north

01:22 east is replace other industries with new clean electricity and this is a really amazing industry

01:29 for the supply chain in the region because a lot of the suppliers have moved from other industries

01:33 into offshore wind and are now helping to build this really important new industry.

01:38 We continue to build more turbines offshore and those will be added into the power generation

01:47 over the next year when we hope to fully commission the first phase Doggerbank A

01:51 in the summer of 2024. That will be the first 1.2 gigawatts which can power up to 2 million UK homes.

01:58 Over the following two years up to 2026 we'll install the next two phases so Doggerbank B

02:05 should be fully commissioned in 2025 and Doggerbank C in 2026 and at that point we'll

02:10 be generating 3.6 gigawatts of electricity to power around 6 million UK homes and all of that

02:16 power is controlled from this facility where we will also be performing all of the operations and

02:22 maintenance.

02:23 I think that the region has such an important industrial heritage and where we're standing

02:45 right now is McNulty's shipyard previously and it was really sad to see industry like shipbuilding

02:52 move away from the region so what better to replace it with than an operations and

02:56 maintenance base for the world's largest offshore wind farm.

02:59 Doggerbank Wind Farm has created over 400 long-term highly skilled highly paid jobs here at the Port

03:09 of Tyne and that's directly with Equinor or our project partners and also with our supply chain

03:15 and these jobs are great fantastic jobs for young people who are interested in the environment

03:21 interested in climate change and will really help the UK move towards a new energy system so it's

03:26 really exciting time and there's lots of young people joining us as well through things like

03:31 our apprenticeship scheme that we've just started.

03:36 My role as the stakeholder manager is to really engage with the local community

03:40 and we've been telling everyone about this moment we've been building up to this time

03:45 and it's a really proud moment for me and the whole team here to see this. I was actually

03:50 the first employee for Equinor to be based here in the north east of England so it's fantastic now

03:55 to see everyone else joining and is really building a big operational hub for the future.

04:04 I think that for the team here in the Port of Tyne we've been building up the team over the

04:08 past couple of years we've built this amazing new facility which is the world's most advanced

04:13 operations and maintenance space and now we're able to get going and start operating and maintaining

04:19 those turbines and we're going to be here for at least 35 years operating and maintaining

04:23 this wind farm and so this is just the start.

04:27 [Music]

First electricity from Dogger Bank wind farm reaches England - credit: Climate Post

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