Progress has been made at the Hornsea 3 windfarm with both offshore converter stations now successfully installed.

Together, they will help transform and transport clean power from Ørsted’s Hornsea 3, the world’s single largest offshore wind farm.

The offshore converter stations are both made up of the jacket, piled into the seabed and the topside which sits above. Although they might look identical, the jacket structures are different designs, due to their different locations.

The jacket for the second offshore converter station will stand in 37 metres of water, five metres deeper than the first, making the structure six metres taller at 60 metres – slightly taller than the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Although it sits deeper, the second offshore converter station remains the same height in total – at 70m above sea level Both need to be the same height to stand clear of the waves.

Ørsted and its suppliers, Aibel, Hitachi Energy and their subcontractors Heerema Fabrication Group designed and fabricated the jackets at their yard facilities in Vlissingen, Netherlands, whilst the topsides were built in Map Ta Phut, Thailand, before sailing more than 13,000 nautical miles to Haugesund, Norway for the installation and commissioning of high voltage equipment. Heerema Marine Contractors were responsible for the transport and installation.

Luke Bridgman, managing director Hornsea 3 at Ørsted, said: “Adapting these massive structures to the specifics of their underwater sites and then successfully installing them is an incredible feat of engineering and a testament to the high level of collaboration across many different companies. Altogether, the design, transportation and installation of our offshore converter stations took four and a half years and many thousands of skilled workers.”

Once operational, the wind farm will produce more than 2.9GW of clean energy, enough to power more than 3.3 million homes. It is the third in Ørsted’s Hornsea Zone, following Hornsea 1 and 2, which together are capable of generating enough power for 2.5 million UK homes.