Seabed investigations to soon start at Hornsea Three offshore wind farm site

Seabed investigations using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) are scheduled to start at the site of Ørsted’s Hornsea Three offshore wind farm in the UK on March 1.

A work-class ROV will be deployed from a DP vessel to investigate discrete areas of the seabed, both in the array site and on the export cable route, according to a recent Notice to Mariners.

The DP vessel is expected to mobilize in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on February 26 and begin survey works on March 1, with operations expected to last approximately 60 days, allowing for mobilization, survey operations, and weather contingencies.

Ørsted was awarded a Contract for Difference (CfD) for Hornsea Three in July 2022, with the developer saying that with an installed capacity of 2.9 GW, Hornsea Three was the largest single offshore wind farm in the world.

In 2023, when Ørsted took the Final Investment Decision (FID) on the offshore wind farm, the company noted that the CfD framework permitted a reduction of the awarded capacity and that Ørsted would use this flexibility to submit a share of Hornsea Three’s capacity into the UK’s CfD allocation round 6 (AR6).

Hornsea Three was awarded 1,080 MW capacity in the UK’s AR6 auction in September 2024.

The 2.9 GW offshore wind farm, located approximately 160 kilometers off the Yorkshire coast, will comprise around 200 Siemens Gamesa’s 14 MW wind turbines and is expected to be operational in 2027.

Once Hornsea Three is completed, the combined capacity of Ørsted’s Hornsea offshore wind farms (Hornsea 1, 2, and 3) will be more than 5 GW, making this one of the world’s largest offshore wind zones.