When completed, Dogger Bank is expected to be the world’s largest offshore wind farm. But before getting there, the project faces explosives dating from the wars of the last century.
Detection of unexploded ordnance (unexploded ordinanceor UXO) will punctuate the deployment of the wind turbines, which must be carried out in three stages.
Thousands of tons of munitions buried in British waters
The Dogger Bank site will effectively be divided into three zones A, B and C. Each corresponds to both a sector of the wind site and an installed capacity of 1.2 GW.
Before considering building anything, however, the British authorities must remove any dangerous elements. According to Safelane Global, a company specializing in UXO management, there are more than 100,000 tonnes of unexploded ordnance in UK waters. These devices date from the two world wars.
The danger is all the greater as the effects of time may have made them unstable. On its website, Safelane Global explains that “ the risk of detonation is increased if these old and unstable devices are disturbed, for example due to vibrations during construction work or underwater engineering processes essential to the development of wind farms. When ammunition is exposed to heat, vibration or contact, it can explode “.
In addition, the seabed at the Dogger Bank site, located in the south-central North Sea, is shallow. It includes sands likely to move with the progress of the work, bringing up UXO buried until now.
Cleaning in progress…
The cleaning work has already begun. Last year, the tables and maps drawn up for the occasion indicated two explosives on the Dogger Bank A site, and six on the Dogger Bank B site. They will be removed in February and the detection phase of all three sites must be completed by March.
A priori, securing the site should not delay construction. Led by a joint venture of British, Norwegian and Italian companies, Dogger Bank is due to be completed in 2026. While sites A, B and C will be able to supply up to six million UK homes, the partners are already considering to carry out a fourth phase. Logically called Dogger Bank D, it would make the whole thing even more gigantic.
Source : Electrek
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