Royal HaskoningDHV key in consent UK wind farms

04 March 2015 Consultancy.uk

The UK Department for Energy and Climate Change has recently granted consent for the development of Dogger Bank Creyke Beck, the largest offshore wind farm of the world. Consulting firm Royal HaskoningDHV has played a key role in this consent by providing the developer Forewind with environmental impact assessments as well as with its expertise and support.

Dogger Bank Creyke Beck
The Dogger Bank Creyke Beck is the first stage of the world’s largest offshore wind farm development project (the Dogger Bank Zone) by Forewind*. The project consists of two wind farms, each with an installed capacity of up to 1.2GW, located between 125km to 290km off the coast of East Yorkshire. The two farms will connect with the existing Creyke Beck substation near Cottingham, in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

On Tuesday 17 February 2015, the UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Davey, announced his decision to grant development consent to Dogger Bank Creyke Beck. The project has subsequently entered the ‘pre-construction, construction and operation’ phase.

Royal HaskoningDHV
Royal HaskoningDHV has been involved in the Dogger Bank projects since 2008 and played a role in the bid that saw the development rights of the projects awarded to Forewind. Since then, the engineering and project management consulting firm has covered each of Forewind’s Environmental Impact Assessments and provided the consortium with its expertise on onshore and offshore consenting disciplines. This included advice on ecology, transport planning, marine mammals and Habitats Regulations Assessment. In addition, the firm provided support, expert input, and oral representation to the examination phases of Dogger Bank Creyke Beck.

“Royal HaskoningDHV been a vitally important partner for Forewind, playing a pivotal role in the development consent order application for Dogger Bank Creyke Beck, particularly in the production of the 15,000 page environmental statement submitted to the Planning Inspectorate,” comments Gareth Lewis, Head of Offshore Development at Forewind. “The development of the Dogger Bank Zone is a flagship in our energy and infrastructure consenting portfolio and we are proud to stand as the longest serving consultancy to Forewind,” adds Robert Staniland, Technical Director - Energy and Infrastructure Consenting at Royal HaskoningDHV.

* Forewind is a consortium comprised of SSE, RWE, Statoil and Statkraft.