Secrets of the world’s biggest wind farm: a first peek inside its Tyneside operations base

ON the south bank of the Tyne, in the port complex at South Shields, a smart, substantial but largely innocuous building will soon become the nerve centre of a substantial chunk of the UK’s entire renewable energy infrastructure.

It’s the operations base for the world’s biggest wind farm, Dogger Bank, 130kms out in the North Sea.

And from this building, the farm’s 277 massive turbines will be monitored, maintained and controlled as they go about the mighty task of generating enough carbon-free electricity to run six million UK homes.

The premises are deemed so important that they are categorised as part of the country’s critical infrastructure by the Government and security is correspondingly tight.

But Climate Post was given the honour of taking a first peek inside the new base and the exclusive opportunity to talk to the man tasked with running it when it becomes fully operational next month.

So here’s a chance to see something you won’t see every day – a look into the care and attention taken to keeping the country’s lights on in the years ahead……

The sheer scale of the engineering involved in Dogger Bank is hard to grasp – but below are a couple of videos from turbine builders GE which will help give you a sense of it.

Below them are two articles which provide further insight into the construction of the four ships which will service the wind farm.

TURBINE RISING: See the first Haliade-X turbine prototype rise Rotterdam (time-lapse)

NACELLE UNVEILED: This is huge – and it’s just the top bit!

EQUINOR.COM: Dogger Bank confirms fourth Service Operations Vessel to North Star

OFFSHOREWIND.BIZ: Dogger Bank Vessel Fleet Starts Taking Shape