Worlds Largest Offshore Wind Farm

Due for completion in 2011, Greater Gabbard is set to be the largest offshore wind farm in the world, it's also the first offshore windfarm to be built outside of UK territorial waters.

Projector Lifting Service Ltd used a 200 tonne lift system to load 70 cable reels onto transport in Littleport, Cambridgeshire for transporting to Harwich in readiness for shipping to their destination by a purpose built vessel some 22.5 miles off the Suffolk coast.

Each reel of the specialised subsea power cable weighed between 35 and 85 tonnes and varied in length from 1.1kms to 3.36kms for a total of more than 200 kilometres. Manufactured by JDR, a leading provider of custom-designed and manufactured subsea power cables, umbilical systems and marine cables for a vast range of applications, the combined 3 phase power and optical cables will provide the critical link between to two separate substations.

The Gabbard and Galloper offshore substations will be linked to 140 wind turbine generators, each capable of generating 3.6MW of renewable electricity, enough to power more than 415,000 homes, or approximate to the total domestic demand of Suffolk.