East Anglia Three Offshore Wind Farm, UK

East Anglia Three is an offshore wind farm being developed off the coast of Norfolk, in the Southern North Sea, the UK. It is owned by ScottishPower Renewables, a part of the Iberdrola group.

The 1.4GW project will form a part of the East Anglia Hub macro-complex, along with the future East Anglia One North and East Anglia Two developments.

Construction works for the project began in July 2022.

The project is expected to start production in 2026. It will generate enough electricity to power 1.3 million UK homes.

Location details

The East Anglia Three project will include an area of 305km². The site is around 69km from the Suffolk coast.

The wind farm is the second project to be consented in the East Anglia Zone. The first project, East Anglia ONE, was commissioned in 2020.

East Anglia Three project background

In November 2012, public engagement process for the project began. A series of public consultation activities were conducted between 2013 and 2015.

ScottishPower Renewables submitted an application for development consent to the Planning Inspectorate in November 2015. It was accepted a month after in December 2015.

An examination of the East Anglia Three was completed in December 2016.

In March 2017, the Planning Inspectorate issued a report of recommendation to the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) on the project.

The Development Consent Order (DCO) for East Anglia Threewas awarded by the BEIS in August 2017. Thereafter, BEIS approved a Non-Material Change in June 2019 to increase the overall capacity of the windfarm from 1,200MW to 1,400MW.

Onshore construction for the project commenced in July 2022.

East Anglia Three Infrastructure

The offshore wind farm will feature more than 100 wind turbines and associated gravity base foundations.

The individual capacities of the turbines will range between 7MW and 12MW, with height up to 262m from the tip.

The project’s infrastructure will include four offshore substations and one offshore platform for operations and accommodation. Four submarine cables will be used to export the renewable electricity onshore.

Power Evacuation

The project will share a landfall site with East Anglia One at Bawdsey. The offshore and onshore cables will be connected in onshore transition pits.

The onshore underground cables will be pulled through existing ducting laid by East Anglia ONE stretching more than 37km from landfall to the connection point at transformer site in Bramford.

From the transformer site, the wind farm will be connected to the National Grid.

Contractors involved

In February 2021, Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy was selected as the preferred bidder to supply and install the wind turbines for the East Anglia Hub.

In May 2021, a consortium of Aker Solutions and Siemens Energy was selected as the preferred engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contractor for the HVDC (high-voltage, direct current) converter stations for the East Anglia Three offshore wind project.

In May 2017, Offshore Design Engineering (ODE) was contracted to provide external resources consulting services for the project.

Royal HaskoningDHV was associated as the lead Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) consultant.

Geological data specialist Fugro received a contract from ScottishPower Renewables in July 2020 to conduct geophysical surveys and site investigation works in the East Anglia Hub area.

In October 2021, Wood Thilsted was engaged to design foundations for more than 200 Siemens Gamesa turbines that will be placed in the East Anglia Hub.

In July 2022, ScottishPower Renewables and Cadeler signed the first Vessel Reservation Agreement involving the transportation and installation of 95 wind turbines at the East Anglia Three site. Cadeler will install the turbines using an O-class vessel and X-class vessel.

Seaway 7, the subsea engineering and construction subsidiary of Subsea 7, will be responsible to transport and install 95 monopile foundations, associated seabed preparation and scour protection along with the engineering, supply and installation of the inner-array cables.

In July 2022, cable and cable accessories supplier NKT was contracted to produce and install the export power cables for the East Anglia Three project. The scope of works will include design and manufacturing of a 320kV HVDC export cable system, two 150km offshore cables and two 40km onshore cables.

In March 2023, Haizea Wind Group signed a contract worth more than €200m to supply 50 monopiles for the offshore wind farm.