German utility RWE and Masdar, its partner in the Dogger Bank South offshore wind project, have hired Fugro for geotechnical seabed surveys on the project sites.
RWE said in a social media post that the findings would provide a detailed and accurate picture of the ground conditions, which will aid the developer in designing the optimal foundations and array cables for the sites.
This will be Fugro’s second contract with RWE for work on Dogger Bank South. It won a geophysical, geotechnical, and environmental site investigation contract for the wind farm and export cable routes in 2022.
The offshore wind farm, located off the northeastern coast of England, will be split across two sites – DBS East and DBS West. Each will have a capacity of 1.5 GW and span some 500 sq km.
Construction is scheduled to start in 2025, with first power of around 800MW available by 2029 while full capacity will be set for late 2031. Once fully commissioned, DBS could provide enough clean energy to power around 3m UK homes.
RWE was awarded a lease for the project in January 2023 and it sold 49% of its stake in the project to Masdar in December 2023.
