DONG Energy Pitches Hornsea Three Onshore Cable Route

​DONG Energy has published an indicative area in which the cables carrying clean electricity from its proposed Hornsea Project Three offshore wind farm could be located, and is seeking feedback from local communities in Norfolk.

Hornsea Project Three is a 2.4GW project that if built out to capacity will provide enough power for well over two million UK homes.

The wind farm will be over 120 kilometres off the north Norfolk Coast in the North Sea.

The cables connecting the turbines to the National Grid will be buried underground and will connect into the existing Norwich Main National Grid Substation, just south of Norwich. The project will also require a new onshore substation in the vicinity of National Grid’s.

In Autumn 2016, DONG Energy held its first round of community consultation events at six locations across Norfolk, and subsequently the project has refined its original search area. The team will present these refined plans at the upcoming consultation events and are seeking local views on the latest proposal.

The times and dates for the seven consultation events can be seen in the table below:

“As one would expect, there are many stages of assessment and consultation before building an offshore windfarm, to ensure that any disturbance or potential environmental impacts are identified, and then minimised or mitigated,” Stuart Livesey, Hornsea Project Three Project Development Manager, said.

“In September last year, we laid out how we were going to consult with the local community in our Statement of Community Consultation. At that stage, we were seeking views on a wider search area. These events helped improve our understanding of the local environment and local concerns, after all the people living and working in these areas are more aware of local issues and sensitivities. We used those responses to refine the onshore search area, so now we’re looking to gain feedback on this more developed proposal.”

Hornsea Project Three is in the pre application phase for gaining consent to be built. If successful, construction of Hornsea Project Three is anticipated to take place between 2022 and 2025.