Emma Toulson, UK Lead Stakeholder Advisor for Orsted, gave members and guests an informative talk on the wind power industry which gives much employment to the Humber region and Grimsby in particular. The audience were then able to ask questions and be rewarded with well-informed answers.
First appearing in our town as Dong (Danish Oil and Natural Gas Energy) Energy, it changed its name to Orsted to better reflect its ambition is to ‘create a world which runs entirely on green energy’ – Orsted being the Danish physicist who discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields (Orsted’s Law). Their business model is a ‘strong integrated end-to-end’ one in which they develop projects from identifying site through building and finally operating a field.
Power generation from wind power has over the years reduced in cost due to a combination of factors: turbines and rotor size, size of site, cable capacity and increased ability to innovate and implement those inovations. As regards rotor size, development is clear in that in 2002 80m rotors were commissioned and currently they are twice the size; by 2020 they are likely to be 180m in diameter. Likewise, size of site has increased from the first wind farm of 11 turbines in 1990 to Hornsea 1, the world’s largest in development now and to comprise of 174. Hornsea 2 due in 2022 will be larger still. The ability to reduce costs in wind power generation means lower priced electricity for the consumer and a reduced reliance in traditional power generation.
The UK is Orsted’s largest market with 11 operational wind farms up to date and 2 in construction. With over 900 employees, the company has grown almost 6 times since 2010. By 2020 when Hornsea1 is in operation the combined farms will provide enough power for 4.4 million homes.
The construction of Hornsea 1 began only this year and power is not due to be generated from it until 2020 and for 1 million homes. It will cover an area of 407 km3 (equivalent of 58,500 Blundell Parks!) 120km from shore. At 190m high, the Siemens Gamesa 7 MW wind turbine is about twice that of our Dock Tower and taller than Humber bridge concrete towers.
As you may well know, wind turbine blades are made in the Siemens factory in Hull (many of may have seen the ‘art’ installation of the turbine blade in the centre of Hull during their year as city of Culture) but the choice of this region for the wind industry was not by accident; our large ports, good communication links, incentives to development and governmental and business support as well as from the public has been crucial. The East Coast Hub (ie Grimsby) will be the world’s largest offshore wind operations base and is where the state-of-the-art Service Operation Vessels will operate from - the first of which arrived in dock only recently and will eventually be the accommodation for workers on Hornsea 1. Over 250 Grimsby people are employed directly by Orsted to work out of the East Coast Hub with an Apprenticeship Programme via Grimsby Institute. Future local, high skilled employment is ensured by Orsted by their work with local schools, colleges and university and by attending careers events.
The talk was a very interesting one and the question and answer session which followed enabled answers to burning questions and proved an engaged audience for Emma! By the end of the evening, the audience learned:
• Grimsby is seen as an exemplar for the wind industry, attracting many visitors from overseas who want the same in their home ports
• Grimsby was chosen as the port most likely to accommodate a turbine service industry due to it being a deep-sea port with land availability along with good road and airport links.
• Measures are taken to cope with extreme weather as the world has experienced in recent times, by changing angles of blades or switch them off if deemed necessary (physics determines the pattern in which the differing turbines turn, for maximum effect).
• Despite its name being used for wind farm names, unfortunately for the town of Hornsea, it does not gain economically
This talk follows that by Martyn Boyers, Chief Executive of Grimsby Fish Dock Enterprises Ltd last November, when he spoke of Grimsby Docks’ regeneration and emergence as the main port for the wind industry’s maintenance personnel and support vessels. GCDCS Executive Committee hopes therefore, to arrange a similar meeting with an ABP representative to further inform members and guests with what is undoubtedly a very positive economic time for the port and immediate area.