Masdar windfarm clears major milestone to power 1.3 million UK homes

The 1.4GW offshore windfarm is due to become fully operational by the end of 2026

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Nivetha Dayanand, Assistant Business Editor
Masdar windfarm clears major milestone to power 1.3 million UK homes
WAM

Dubai: Masdar and ScottishPower Renewables have completed installation of all 95 foundations at the £4 billion East Anglia THREE offshore windfarm, moving the 1.4GW project closer to supplying clean power to more than 1.3 million UK homes.

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All 95 transition pieces have also been installed off the Suffolk coast, while turbine installation is already under way and has crossed the halfway mark.

Offshore and onshore construction will continue over the coming months, with East Anglia THREE scheduled to become fully operational by the end of 2026.

All 95 foundations installed

The monopiles weigh between 1,200 and 1,800 tonnes, stand between 67 and 84 metres tall and have a diameter of up to 10.6 metres.

Masdar and ScottishPower said they are the largest monopiles to be installed from a jack-up vessel in Europe.

The 95 transition pieces are each 20 metres high, eight metres in diameter and weigh more than 400 tonnes.

The completion of foundation installation at East Anglia THREE is a significant milestone and a remarkable engineering achievement. It reflects the strength of our partnership with ScottishPower and the expertise of the project team and contractors, particularly Seaway7, who are working together to deliver one of the UK’s largest offshore wind farms.
Husain Al Meer, Executive Director, Global Offshore Wind and UK at Masdar

East Anglia THREE is Masdar’s first 50:50 offshore wind joint venture in the UK and forms part of its partnership with ScottishPower Renewables.

“With electricity demand accelerating, offshore wind will be essential to delivering affordable, home-grown power at scale,” Al Meer said.

Turbine installation passes halfway mark

The project will have 95 turbines with 115-metre blades, with installation now beyond the halfway point.

East Anglia THREE is our biggest windfarm ever and the completion of the foundation installation is a true engineering triumph. You only have to look at the numbers – more than 200,000 tonnes of steel anchored spot on into a seabed area the size of almost 43,000 football pitches – to get a sense of what we’ve achieved so far. It’s mind-blowing.
ScottishPower Renewables CEO Charlie Jordan

The foundation installation was delivered by Seaway7 using the Seaway Ventus, with East Anglia THREE marking the vessel’s first completed foundation installation campaign.

Seaway7 is continuing installation of inter-array cables as construction progresses.

£2 billion invested in UK supply chain

Nearly £2 billion has been invested in the UK supply chain for East Anglia THREE, including foundation design by Wood Thilsted and turbine blade manufacturing at Siemens Gamesa’s factory in Hull.

The investment also includes vessel charters from Norfolk-based NR Marine Services and OEG, along with support from metocean and seabed consultants Partrac.

East Anglia THREE is supporting 2,300 jobs during construction and is expected to create around 100 long-term roles in the East of England.

Once operational, its 1.4GW capacity will produce enough clean power for more than 1.3 million homes.

- With inputs from WAM.

Nivetha Dayanand
Nivetha DayanandAssistant Business Editor
Nivetha Dayanand is Assistant Business Editor at Gulf News, covering aviation, financial markets and commodities. A business and financial journalist with a strong interest in multimedia storytelling, she regularly takes complex financial and economic subjects beyond the written word, producing explainer videos that make them easier for a wider audience to understand. Nivetha has interviewed senior policymakers, business leaders and global financial figures both on and off camera. Her past guests include UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, a member of the House of Saud and the founder and CEO of KBW Ventures, Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund and Indian ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and N. Chandrababu Naidu. She has also hosted and moderated panels, conferences and awards shows, bringing her newsroom experience to live conversations on business, finance and the economy. An Erasmus Mundus journalism alum, Nivetha is drawn to stories that affect people directly and to reporting that gives a platform to voices that might otherwise go unheard. She was among the first journalists to speak to Petrofac employees in the UAE about unpaid salaries, broke the news of the planned demolition of Dubai’s well-known “Toyota Building”, and helped set the record straight on widely circulated claims that a giant replica of the Moon was coming to Dubai. More recently, her exclusive interview with EDGE Group CEO Hamad Al Marar revealed how the UAE-based defence group deployed its systems along the country’s shore border and established a geofence around the UAE within 48 hours of the February 28 escalation. Prior to joining Gulf News, Nivetha worked at ITP Media, where she helped launch Finance Middle East, a new publication covering the region’s financial sector. Her role spanned reporting and editing, video production, interviews and events. Across print, digital, and video, she focuses on finding the people behind business stories and explaining why those stories matter to the audience reading or watching them.

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