3rd February 2025 in Project news, Supply Chain
North Star has officially named and handed over its latest service operations vessel (SOV), the Grampian Tweed, completing the company’s fleet of dedicated ships serving the Dogger Bank Wind Farm on long-term charter.
The Grampian Tweed is the fourth SOV introduced to support the Dogger Bank Wind Farm. This achievement builds on the strong foundation of collaboration, innovation, and shared expertise throughout North Star’s and Dogger Bank’s supply chain, with all four hybrid-powered ships designed to provide crucial logistical and safety support for the maintenance and operation of the wind farm.
“The naming of the Grampian Tweed is a proud moment for all of us across the business,” said Gitte Gard Talmo, CEO of North Star. “Our in-house teams have worked tirelessly to ensure that this SOV, alongside its sister vessels, meets the highest standards of safety, efficiency, and environmental responsibility. The early handover of all these ships not only reinforces our partnership with Equinor and SSE Renewables but also strengthening our role in the transition to a greener, more sustainable energy future.”
The Grampian Tweed’s naming ceremony, held at Associated British Ports (ABP) new Lowestoft Eastern Energy Facility, was attended by representatives from North Star, Equinor, SSE Renewables, and local stakeholders.
Grampian Tweed service operations vessel
Emma Sayer, the Grampian Tweed’s godmother has been a valued member of North Star’s crewing team in Lowestoft for over 16 years. She played a key role in the naming ceremony which also featured a blessing from Rev. Peter Paine and speeches from Julian Walker, CCO & regional director of ABP, and Kamala Hajiyeva, VP & head of the Dogger Bank Development.
Kamala Hajiyeva, VP and head of Dogger Bank Wind Farm development said:
“With the arrival of the Grampian Tweed SOV, we celebrate the last of four vessels delivered to the project. The Grampian Tweed also provides a best-in-class working and living environment for our offshore wind technicians and team members, ensuring they can carry out essential maintenance safely and comfortably. The vessel’s advanced features will also provide essential services to the operations and maintenance of Dogger Bank Wind Farm, which will become the world’s largest offshore wind farm.”
Once complete, Dogger Bank will become the largest offshore wind farm in the world, with 3.6GW of generating capacity, enough to power up to six million homes annually. The addition of the Grampian Tweed to the fleet highlights the crucial role that North Star and its vessels play in supporting the continued development and success of the wind farm.
SSE Renewables Project Director for Dogger Bank Wind Farm, Olly Cass, said:
“Congratulations to the team at North Star for achieving another significant milestone for our pioneering project. Today’s ceremony takes place in the region where our hybrid-powered daughter craft were built, once again demonstrating the huge amount of UK skills and expertise involved in delivering and operating the world’s largest offshore wind farm.”
Over the past three years, North Star has invested £270m and placed 160 experienced seafarers to support its Dogger Bank tonnage and will recruit a further 160 seafarers for its expanding SOV fleet in the next three years to meet current contract charter commitments.
Dogger Bank Wind Farm is proud to support the UK’s offshore wind supply chain and has created more than 2,000 UK jobs in relation to the construction and operation activities of the project.
Image caption: North Star’s Grampian Tweed Masters Michael Dodd and Juan A. Escribano flank North Star CEO Gitte Gard Talmo, ABP’s CCO and regional director Julian Walker, and Kamala Hajiyeva, VP and Head of Development for the Dogger Bank Wind Farm
12th September 2024 in Community News, Press releases, Project news
- Anglo-Saxon discoveries near Ulrome and Skipsea close to location where Anglo-Saxon timber hall was excavated by York University earlier this year.
- Dogger Bank discoveries indicate Anglo-Saxons settled in Holderness.
- Evidence of Bronze Age, Iron-Age and Roman presence also excavated during Dogger Bank work.
- Archaeologists to talk about their significant discoveries at public event in Ulrome on 20 September.
Archaeologists working on Dogger Bank Wind Farm will reveal at a public event next week how they unearthed significant evidence of Anglo-Saxon presence in Holderness.
The ground-breaking early medieval discoveries were unearthed by the archaeologists working on the 30km corridor that houses the underground cables transmitting renewable energy from Dogger Bank Wind Farm in the North Sea, to the wind farm’s two onshore convertor stations off the A1079 near Beverley.
These significant discoveries include remnants of an Anglo-Saxon long hall structure between Beeford and Skipsea, and an Iron-Age or Anglo-Saxon glass bead recovered from a site in Ulrome. The two sites close to Beeford produced the most evidence for Anglo-Saxon activity.
More radiocarbon dating of the activity on these sites is required, but at the moment an area of 5th-6th century activity associated with metalworking has been identified, close to a separate area where a long hall and field system ditches were recorded. The findings indicate Anglo-Saxons probably lived and farmed in this landscape over multiple phases between the 5th-11th centuries.
Radiocarbon dating is a scientific method for accurately determining the age of organic materials, by analysing the decay of radioactive isotopes. The developers of the windfarm have invested in this technique to ensure the project provides local communities and historians with accurate data about how the land was used hundreds of years ago.
Across the pipeline route archaeologists also discovered Iron Age and Roman evidence including well-preserved roundhouses in Ulrome, Beeford and Leven, a long-handled bone comb in Leven and significant amounts of handmade and wheel-thrown pottery.
It has long been clear the Holderness area was inhabited by the Anglo-Saxons due to the names of the towns and villages in the area, many of which incorporate Anglo-Saxon elements. Over recent years archaeological evidence has begun to emerge of Anglo-Saxon activity in the landscape, and the findings near Beeford add significantly to an emerging picture of Anglo-Saxon life in the region, greatly enhancing understanding of the period in Holderness.
The evidence for domestic and industrial activity that was unearthed at the sites, which has been evaluated and confirmed by medieval specialists, is of particular importance and significance.
Since the excavations at Beeford, a team of experts from York University has excavated a nearby site in Skipsea, further confirming the presence of Anglo-Saxons in the local area, centuries ago.
Community Engagement Manager for Dogger Bank Wind Farm, Rachel Lawrence, said:
“Safeguarding historical evidence has been a critical part of our preparation work on Dogger Bank Wind Farm. We’re delighted we’re now able to share these exciting findings with the people who live in the towns and villages where this work was undertaken.
“As well as the multi-million pound investment Dogger Bank Wind Farm is making to support its key coastal communities, this work will add to the legacy we’ve created during the construction of the world’s largest offshore wind farm.”
The work was completed by Dogger Bank Wind Farm contractor AOC Archaeology, and their analysis has been supported by a wide team of artefact and period specialists.
Dogger Bank Wind Farm has commissioned the production of replicas of some of the artefacts for educational purposes, and is set to share these with the public for the first time next week.
Representatives from the wind farm and AOC Archaeology will present the findings at a public event at Rickaby Village Hall in Ulrome, at 6pm on 20 September.
After the public event the replicas will be made available for local schools, to bring local history to life in the classroom. They include handmade replicas of a 6,000-year-old flint arrowhead, an Iron Age or Anglo-Saxon glass bead, an Iron Age to Roman bone comb and pottery that is thought to date back more than 2,000 years.
An online exhibition is also set to be launched later this year, giving the public access to a wealth of information about AOC’s work in the East Riding of Yorkshire.
During the Ulrome event AOC experts will share insight into the process of excavating and preserving historical artefacts, and describe the moment they realised they were on the verge of a regionally-significant discovery.
Project Manager for AOC Archaeology, Rebecca Jarosz- Blackburn, said:
“For me the most surprising and rewarding discovery on this project was the Anglo-Saxon long hall and associated field systems we recorded near Beeford, which represents some of the most extensive evidence from the period in the Holderness region.
“Since then it’s exciting to see further evidence from the period emerge, including the recent discovery of another Anglo-Saxon long hall in Skipsea by researchers from York University.
“Together our work on Dogger Bank Wind Farm and this work by York University is adding significant bodies of evidence like Anglo-Saxon pottery, metalwork and industrial materials in a region where Anglo-Saxon evidence has historically been quite sparse.
“Anglo Saxon discoveries of this kind are really interesting, because they give an opportunity to look at the everyday lives of people from the period – including how they farmed and interacted with the landscape. Unlike a cemetery site, where you might find the brooches and more precious items, if you can identify an Anglo-Saxon farming or settlement site you get a rare chance to investigate more of the reality of life in the period.”
Rickaby Village Hall was chosen for this event due to its proximity to the wind farm’s landfall point at Ulrome, where the wind farm’s sub-sea cables meet the onshore cables, for onward transmission to the convertor stations near Beverley. An Iron Age or Anglo-Saxon glass bead that forms part of the school education pack was also unearthed in the village of Ulrome.
The event is supported by Lissett and Ulrome Parish Council.
A second event is set to be held at a location further on in the 30km cable corridor at a future date to be confirmed.
AOC Project Manager Matt Walker, who grew up in East Yorkshire, also has a local connection to the Dogger Bank project. He said:
“One of the exciting outputs of the projects has been the volume of pottery coming out of our ditches – from some sites (including near Leven) there were wheelbarrows full of pottery.
“The region is known for producing Iron Age to Roman pottery so this is not a surprise, and to date the pottery we have typologies giving date ranges based on the fabrics and styles etc.
“At Dogger Bank, one of our main research aims was to try and narrow the current date ranges for handmade prehistoric and Roman pottery in the region by using radiocarbon dating.
“It is the scale of this project across the region, coupled with funding for radiocarbon dates, that gives us a really meaningful opportunity to add to this research theme and advance our understanding of Holderness thousands of years ago.
“What we found in and around Burshill was the core of an Iron Age to Roman settlement that would not have been uncovered without this net zero development.
“There are more artefacts that we’re still analysing and we hope to provide further information about them as our understanding becomes clearer.”
AOC and Dogger Bank Wind Farm are currently considering options for permanently locating the original artefacts once they’ve been fully analysed, with a preference to find a home close to where they were unearthed.
Set to be the world’s largest offshore wind farm once complete, Dogger Bank is situated over 130km from the Yorkshire coast and will produce enough renewable energy to supply electricity to six million homes in the UK annually. The wind farm, a joint venture between SSE Renewables, Equinor, and Vårgrønn, produced first power in October 2023.
The first two phases of the wind farm will transmit renewable energy into the national electricity network via the Creyke Beck substation near Beverley, close to the site where the project has built two onshore convertor stations over the last five years.
30th August 2024 in Project news
Following the blade event on 22 August on an installed turbine at the Dogger Bank A offshore wind farm construction site, Dogger Bank Wind Farm has been working closely with turbine manufacturer, GE Vernova, to investigate the root cause of the event.
GE Vernova analysis has shown that this blade event was not caused by an installation or manufacturing issue but instead occurred during the commissioning process.
GE Vernova analysis has established that during the commissioning process being performed by GE Vernova, the turbine was left in a fixed and static position, rendering it vulnerable during a subsequent storm with high winds.
The surrounding marine area at the site remains restricted in line with safety procedures. Installation activities at the site will restart in the coming days.
29th July 2024 in Community News, Project news
Four Tees Valley schoolchildren have had their writing skills recognised in a World Book Day competition.
The 500-word challenge to create an energy-themed superhero story, was launched in March.
The competition was part of the Dogger Bank Wind Farm-funded Building our Futures programme, which aims to embed STEM careers education into every primary school in Redcar and Cleveland, through engaging workshops supported by local employers.
The programme is delivered by Redcar and Cleveland Voluntary Development Agency (RCVDA) with strategic support and guidance from Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council.
Judges from Dogger Bank Wind Farm and its civil engineering contractor, Keltbray, were joined by local poet and published author Bob Beagrie, to decide on the winning entries.
Sammy from KTS Academy was selected as the winner, with her tale of Ice Man and his ability to rescue penguins and polar bears by refreezing melting ice caps.
Connie of St Joseph’s Primary in Loftus, Leah of Handale Primary in Loftus and Bonnie of Dormanstown Primary, were all recognised as highly-commended runner-ups. Bonnie was selected for a special silver award for impressing the judges with her exceptional use of descriptive language.
Customer and social value lead for Keltbray, Stuart Culley, said:
“It was an honour for Keltbray to be involved in this short story writing competition. Across every area of our business, we’re committed to engaging with young people and raising aspirations for the science, technology, engineering and maths-based careers that are available. It’s particularly been of interest to see how the children have used the creative aspects, to share their understanding of the construction industry, our drive towards carbon reduction / net-zero projects and leaving a legacy for future generations. We really enjoyed reading their work, we hope that together we’ve been able to inspire future generations to work in the field of renewable energy.”
Middlesbrough poet and published author, Bob Beagrie, said:
“As a published writer, I was taken aback by the quality of the young people’s creative writing, the sophistication of language, narrative ideas and their imagination in creative Net Zero superhero stories for the Doggerbank Windfarm.”
The Building Our Futures programme has now provided STEM career workshops for more than 4,000 primary school children, from 36 schools in Redcar and Cleveland. 73 local employers have given up a combined 377 hours to contribute to its success in its first two years.
Find out more here: Building Our Futures – RCVDA
