Equinor has hired Mark Halliday as operations director for the 3600MW Dogger Bank offshore wind farm.
Halliday, who joins the project from EDF Renewables, will be responsible for overall operations across the three phases of the wind farm.
At EDF Renewables he was offshore operations manager and worked most recently on the 450MW Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm project off Scotland.
Halliday said: “I am delighted to join the Dogger Bank team and lead the operations phase of this pioneering project.
“That the world’s largest offshore wind farm is being built off the coast of north-east England is a fantastic opportunity for the area and being from the region it’s great to see South Shields has been selected as the location for the O&M base.
“It’s a proud moment for me to take on this prestigious role and help build up local capabilities in offshore wind.”
In addition Felicity Wann has been appointed as Dogger Bank operations leader, responsible for the engineers managing the day-to-day operations of the wind farm.
Wann has worked at Equinor for around seven years in roles across health and safety, emergency response and services and logistics at the company’s Mariner Field, off the Aberdeen Coast.
Wann said: “It’s a real honour to be part of such an important project, and I’m excited to get started.
“Securing this role demonstrates that skills and expertise gained from working in oil and gas can be transferred across to roles in the renewables industry, a really important message to convey as we will need thousands of people to deliver on the Government’s net zero and renewables targets.
“My parents are from South Shields so it’s great to be returning to an area I know well and I look forward to building up a strong team here to deliver a world-class project.”
Equinor vice president for Dogger Bank, Halfdan Brustad, said: “These are exciting positions which present the opportunity to shape the strategic operational direction for Dogger Bank and define sector-leading performance at the world’s largest wind farm.
“We want Dogger Bank to be a flagship digitalisation project, pioneering best in class across the sector and we are delighted to have both Mark and Felicity onboard to achieve this.”