October 8, 2021 10.39 am This story is over 29 months old

Major milestone for Lincolnshire offshore wind farm

Helping the country source renewable energy
The Triton Knoll landfall following reinstatement. | Photo: Triton Knoll
By Local Democracy Reporter

An offshore wind farm project by Triton Knoll has hit a major milestone, with all onshore electrical construction works now finished at the Grimsby site.

Work started on the project, 32km off the Lincolnshire coast, in September 2018, and when complete is expected to generate enough electricity to meet the needs of around 800,000 homes each year.

The offshore wind farm generated its first electricity in February this year, marking a key milestone in the project’s mission to help decarbonise the UK energy system.

An offshore wind farm. | Photo: Triton Knoll

The work has involved laying 57km of 220kV underground cable from the project’s landfall location near Anderby Creek to the newly constructed onshore substation near Bicker Fen, while a further 1.8km of cabling was installed to allow connection into the national grid.

The delivery of the onshore construction works was done using UK sourced engineering, resources, civil and reinstatement contracts, and more than 300 people were employed during the peak of works.

Once fully operational, the wind farm will have a maximum installed capacity of 857 megawatts, and be the most powerful global fleet of electricity generation company RWE.

The first turbine installed at Triton Knoll.

Julian Garnsey, project director for RWE and Triton Knoll, said: “We have worked closely with all our supply chain to ensure that construction progressed safely and efficiently, even during the Coronavirus pandemic.

“We’d like to thank everyone involved for their dedication to ensuring the safety of all whilst building this nationally significant infrastructure project.

“We’d also like to thank the local communities and landowners for their understanding and cooperation while we completed the construction works.

“Land has been handed back to owners ahead of schedule in many locations and now reinstatement works are complete, with the vast majority of the land already returned to agricultural use.”