North Star Wins £90m Contract to Complete Vessel Package for Dogger Bank Wind Farm

North Star Group has clinched the service operations vessel (SOV) contract to support the third phase of the Dogger Bank Wind Farm, off the coast of Yorkshire. The UK firm has secured a long-term charter worth approximately £90 million to deliver an additional ship boasting its new hybrid-powered renewables fleet design for Dogger Bank C to support offshore wind technicians working in the field.

This will be the fourth SOV and associated daughter craft the business has been contracted to build and operate by Dogger Bank’s joint partners Equinor, SSE Renewables and Eni this year, making North Star the exclusive service vessel operator for the world’s largest wind farm for at least the next decade. In March, the firm won the initial contract for Dogger Bank A and Dogger Bank B following a competitive tender for the design and delivery of three SOVs in a deal worth an estimated £270 million.

Each of the four Dogger Bank SOVs have been contracted on a 10-year agreement, with three additional one-year options. The £360 million combined value is believed to be one of the world’s most successful offshore renewables related SOV charter deals of 2021, and further consolidates North Star’s position as the UK’s leading offshore infrastructure support services company.

Around 40 new full-time positions in crewing and onshore-based jobs will be created locally in support of the Dogger Bank C contract, in addition to the 130 announced previously to support the first three SOVs. Recruitment is already underway, underpinning the company’s commitment to supporting communities in the UK.

The company, which employs around 1,400 personnel out of its facilities in Aberdeen, Newcastle and Lowestoft, has unrivalled marine expertise in the North Sea. The business, which has been operating for 135 years, has the largest wholly owned UK fleet and currently supports more than 50 installations with its existing purpose-built tonnage.

North Star’s new SOVs are high performance, sustainable vessels capable of supporting net-zero goals and utilising fuels of the future. They provide comfortable, floating-hotel style accommodation to offshore wind turbine technicians and a centralised logistics hub to travel to and from work each day across a ‘walk-to-work’ gangway, or transfer via a smaller daughter craft vessel. The SOVs are also configured to handle cargo and act as a warehouse.

“Securing the final SOV contract required for the Dogger Bank Wind Farm development for the next decade is an honour, and testament to the hard work and dedication of the team at North Star and our talented technology partners. We are fully committed to supporting the local supply chain and communities in the UK where possible and are actively recruiting around 170 personnel from across the country to support this complete vessel package. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank Equinor, SSE Renewables and Eni for their enthusiasm and confidence in our SOV service, which significantly shifts the dial on sustainability, comfort, safety, and workability. These hybrid-powered vessels are futureproofed for tomorrow’s zero-carbon emission marine fuels and the superior home-from-home living space will provide the offshore wind technicians exceptional respite from the often-harsh North Sea environment,” North Star CEO, Matthew Gordon said.

“The Dogger Bank C award has put us in an even stronger market position to deliver further value to our shareholders as we continue with our strategic ambitions to secure additional projects in the UK offshore renewables market and beyond,” added Matthew Gordon.

Due to its size and scale, Dogger Bank is being built in three consecutive 1.2GW phases; Dogger Bank A, Dogger Bank B and Dogger Bank C. In total the wind farm is expected to generate enough renewable electricity to supply 5% of the UK’s demand, equivalent to powering six million homes.

“With the final SOV also being delivered by North Star we will have the same ship owner across all three phases which means we will continue the constructive cooperation we have started and develop the operational synergies further. As we have seen from North Star’s initial contract award, securing big orders can really help UK businesses enter the offshore wind market, secure investment and create jobs, and we at Dogger Bank are proud to have played a role in enabling this UK company take advantage of the global opportunity presented by offshore wind,” Rune Rønvik, Project Manager for Dogger Bank, noted.

North Star’s bespoke vessel design was developed in close collaboration with VARD, one of the world’s major shipbuilders of specialised vessels.

The ship bound for Dogger Bank C is a third order of a VARD 4 12 SOV, which is 78 metres long with a 19 metres beam and has 60 single cabins. Each vessel has a deadweight capacity of 1,600 tonnes.

The remaining vessel is a VARD 4 19, 85-metre which also has a 19 metres beam and will be able to accommodate 78 persons in single cabins. has a deadweight capacity of 2,000 tonnes and has a helipad.

All four SOVs are being built at VARD’s Vung Tau shipyard in Vietnam, which has a proven track record in on-schedule delivery. Work on the first vessel commenced in October and the first SOVs are scheduled to arrive at Port of Tyne in summer 2023, with the Dogger Bank C ship due in 2025.

“We would like congratulate North Star for the fourth contract of the complete vessel package for Dogger Bank Wind Farm, and at the same time thank North Star for choosing VARD as partner to design and build their hybrid-powered renewables fleet. We are honoured of having all four SOVs in our portfolio, and it confirms that our investments in the renewable energy field are right both for our customers and for VARD. Together we continue our contribution to a sustainable future, actively working to get to zero emission,” VARD CEO, Alberto Maestrini mentioned.

 

Dogger Bank Wind Farm facts

• The 3.6GW Dogger Bank Wind Farm will be the world’s largest offshore wind farm when completed in 2026.
• It is being built in three 1.2GW phases: Dogger Bank A, B and C.
• Dogger Bank A and B is a joint venture between SSE Renewables (40%), Equinor (40%) and Eni (20%). In November 2021 SSE Renewables and Equinor, 50:50 joint venture partners in Dogger Bank C, announced Eni will take a 20% stake in the third phase, with SSE Renewables and Equinor maintaining 40% stakes each. The deal is expected to complete in Q1 2022, subject to regulatory approvals.
• SSE Renewables is lead operator for the development and construction of Dogger Bank Wind Farm. Equinor will be lead operator of the wind farm on completion for its expected operational life of around 35 years.
• Financial Close on Dogger Bank A and Dogger Bank B was reached in November 2020, with Financial Close for Dogger Bank C reached in December 2021. Taken in aggregate, reaching Financial Close on all three phases of Dogger Bank Wind Farm is the largest offshore wind project financing to date globally.
• Consent for Dogger Bank Wind Farm was granted in 2015.
• Each of the three phases of Dogger Bank Wind Farm secured 15-year CfD contracts for 1.2GW of low carbon power for of low carbon power production in the UK’s third CfD Allocation Round, announced September 2019.
• In May 2021, Dogger Bank Wind Farm took another major step forward after passing a required delivery milestone under the UK’s Contracts for Difference scheme for low carbon power.
• Dogger Bank Wind Farm is located in the North Sea, with each phase more than 130km from the Yorkshire Coast.
• Onshore construction began in 2020 and is currently underway for Dogger Bank A and Dogger Bank B, with offshore construction on Dogger Bank A due to begin in Q2 2022. First power is expected in Summer 2023 and Summer 2024 for Dogger Bank A and B, respectively, with commercial operations to follow around 6 months later.
• Onshore cable installation civils works for Dogger Bank C will start in Q1 2022, with construction of the onshore convertor station to commence in Q2 2022. Offshore export cable installation will commence in Q1 2024 with offshore platform installation to commence in Q2, 2024. Foundation installation will commence in Q3, 2024 while turbine installation will commence in Q2, 2025. First power is anticipated in Q3, 2025 and full power in Q1, 2026.
• Almost 3000 new UK jobs have been announced so far that will be supported by the construction and operation of Dogger Bank Wind Farm.
• These include up to 750 direct and around 1,500 indirect jobs associated with the set-up of a new world-class blade manufacturing facility on Teesside by LM Wind Power, a GE Renewable Energy business, with production due to start in 2023.
• 470 jobs are expected to be recruited by GE Renewable Energy across the northeast of England in support of the delivery and operation of all three phases of the project. These will be made up of around 300 skilled roles for turbine installation and commissioning activities and 170 servicing roles at Port of Tyne under GE’s five-year Service and Warranty Agreements for Dogger Bank phases A, B and C once operational.
• At least a further 30 roles will be hired by Equinor as operator of the wind farm, based at the Port of Tyne or offshore.
• 130 new full-time UK-based jobs will be created by North Star Renewables in crewing and shore-based roles for the operation of the three-vessel service fleet for Dogger Bank Wind Farm.
• Up to 100 peak construction jobs will be created by Jones Bros. Civil Engineering, one of the UK’s leading civil engineering contractors, on the installation of onshore cable infrastructure for Dogger Bank A and B.
• Dogger Bank A and B has confirmed GE’s Haliade-X 13MW as the turbine powering the first two phases of the project. As the first order for the Haliade-X 13MW, installation at Dogger Bank A will be the first time the turbine is installed in the world.
• Installation of GE’s upscaled Haliade-X 14MW turbine at Dogger Bank C will be the first time the 14MW turbine is installed in the world.
• One rotation of the Haliade-X turbine blades can power one UK home for more than two days.
• The wind turbines will be installed on monopile foundations.
• Dogger Bank will be the first High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) connected wind farm in the UK due to its distance from shore, introducing new transmission systems to the UK and paving the way for other large offshore wind farms.