UK engineering consultancy WS Atkins has secured a contract from Dong Energy for designing a substation for the 580MW Race Bank offshore wind power project.
The Racebank wind farm will be located in the Greater Wash area off the east coast of England and construction of the facility is estimated to begin in 2017.
Atkins has already been awarded contracts for designing the substations for DONG Energy’s Walney and Burbo extension projects.
Dong Energy UK country manager for wind power Benj Sykes said, "DONG Energy has a tough target to cut the cost of offshore wind by 35 – 40 per cent by 2020. We are doing this through standardising the building of a wind farm.
"Atkins is working with us to provide a design for five substations that can be applied to three of our projects."
Atkins power and renewables managing director Dave Parkin said, "With over 30 years looking after oil and gas offshore structures, we can directly apply lessons learned in terms of construction and operation in deeper waters, foundation and jacket technology, the use of heavy-lift vessels and asset maintenance offshore.
"Our UK based team will be working together with DONG Energy to apply the lessons on these large, complex projects enabling us to set new benchmarks in stripping out any fat for an industry that needs to become more and more competitive with other energy sources."
Image: 3D model of an offshore substation. Photo: courtesy of Atkins.