SSE Renewables has warned further delays to turbine installation at the 1.2GW Dogger Bank A wind farm off east England may push back full operations to 2025.
The developer said in a trading update that poor weather, supply chain issues and the availability of vessels had all dented progress at the North Sea site which had been expected to be complete by the end of this year.
A total of 95 GE Haliade-X turbines had been targeted to be in place by the second quarter of this year. However, only seven have been completed since the works commenced last July, according to the most recent weekly update from the project.
The latest warning marks a further departure from the original timeline set by the project partners (which include Equinor and Vargronn).
Subscriber-only reNEWS exclusively revealed in September how tough weather conditions, manufacturing delays and the utilisation of new equipment in waters over 120km offshore had already created commissioning delays, forcing a third quarter 2024 installed capacity target for 790MW to be watered down to just 25MW.
SSE said any slippage into 2025 is unlikely to “materially change” financial returns from the AR3 project.
It added it is working with supply chain partners to improve turbine installation rates and a further update would be provided in May when it publishes FY24 results.