Luke Bridgman, managing director for Ørsted’s Hornsea 3 Offshore Wind Farm, discusses the scale of the project.

At Ørsted, our vision is to create a world that runs entirely on green energy.

Climate change, nature loss and energy security are all driving the urgent need for the global green energy transition.

Hornsea 3 Offshore Wind Farm is the most ambitious – and most challenging – project we’ve developed since we built the world’s first offshore wind farm over 30 years ago.

Once operational, Hornsea 3 will have a generating capacity of 2.9 gigawatts – that’s enough to power 3.3 million UK homes with green electricity.

Our aim is to work collaboratively with the local community in Norfolk to deliver the world’s single largest offshore wind farm in an environmentally sensitive, efficient, and low-impact way.

Green energy on a new scale

Hornsea 3 is part of the Hornsea Zone of offshore wind farms which is located approximately 120 kilometres off the Norfolk coast in the North Sea. Its sister projects, Hornsea 1 and Hornsea 2, together already produce enough electricity to provide 2.5 million UK homes with green power. 

In an industry driven by constant innovation, Hornsea 3 will be significantly larger than those two projects combined.

Thanks to technological advances it will also be greener and have a smaller carbon footprint: Hornsea 3 will have more than double the green energy output of Hornsea 2 with only 20% more turbines.

Luke Bridgman, Hornsea 3 managing directorLuke Bridgman, Hornsea 3 managing director (Image: Ørsted)
The project will also be co-located with what will be one of the largest battery energy storage systems in Europe upon completion.

The 600 MWh battery system will be installed on the same site as the project’s onshore converter station near Norwich. It will store excess wind power to help balance the UK’s National Grid and reduce price volatility for consumers.

Community benefits

Given the scale of the project, it will benefit the local and national economy through supply chain investment.

It is expected to support up to 5,000 jobs during its construction phase, as well as a further 1,200 permanent jobs both directly and in the supply chain during the project’s decades of operation and maintenance.

We have also committed £7 million to support local social and environmental projects in areas near our sites in Norfolk and Suffolk over the next 10 years through our Hornsea 3 Community Benefit Fund.  In particular, a Legacy Fund of £100,000 is annually ring-fenced to support a single project focused on making a beneficial impact on the environment.

Our extraordinary team of dedicated professionals from engineers to environmental experts are passionate about safely delivering one of the world’s biggest and most complicated civil engineering projects while also leaving a lasting positive legacy locally, nationally and globally.

For more information, visit hornseaproject3.co.uk or orsted.co.uk