The offshore converter stations are both made up of the jacket, piled into the seabed, and the topside, which sits above. Although they might look identical, the jacket structures are different designs due to their different locations. The jacket for the second Offshore Converter Station will stand in 37 meters of water, five meters deeper than the first, making the structure 6 meters taller at 60 meters—slightly taller than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Although it sits deeper, the second Offshore Converter Station remains the same height in total—at 70 m above sea level or 1.2 times the height of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Both need to be the same height to stand clear of the waves.

The installation of this second Offshore Converter Station marks another important milestone in the construction of the Hornsea 3 Offshore Wind Farm. Ørsted and its suppliers, Aibel, Hitachi Energy, and their subcontractors. Heerema Fabrication Group designed and fabricated the jackets at their yard facilities in Vlissingen, Netherlands, whilst the topsides were built in Map Ta Phut, Thailand, before sailing more than 13,000 nautical miles to Haugesund, Norway for the installation and commissioning of high-voltage equipment. Heerema Marine Contractors were responsible for the transport and installation.

Luke Bridgman, Managing Director, Hornsea 3 at Ørsted, said: “Adapting these massive structures to the specifics of their underwater sites and then successfully installing them is an incredible feat of engineering and a testament to the high level of collaboration across many different companies. Altogether, the design, transportation, and installation of our offshore converter stations took four and a half years and many thousands of skilled workers.”