Thistle Wind Partners (TWP) brings together three companies – DEME Group, Qair and Aspiravi – which build renewable energy projects around the world. The Bowdun Offshore Wind Farm will be 44km off the coast of Stonehaven and 43km from Aberdeen City. The sea here is still quite shallow (under 70m deep) so we will fix the offshore wind turbines to the seabed using jackets. We would start building th
e offshore wind farm in 2029, which means we need to talk to manufacturers and understand what the best types of turbines will be by then. There will be 40 to 60 offshore wind turbines at the site (the number will depend on the type of turbines we use). These will be next-generation turbines, much bigger than those you can see today (but also much further away). While we do not know exactly what our turbines will look like yet, we can give you an idea of scale…. An 18MW turbine weighs 2,430 tonnes (which means that each turbine weighs the same as 18 adult blue whales). Each foundation could weigh more than 2,000 – 3,000 tonnes. What will I see? Our turbines will be beyond the horizon, but in certain weather conditions objects could just about be visible from that distance. As part of our consenting process, we will produce visualisations once we know our turbine models. ONSHORE CONNECTION
When an offshore wind developer signs a lease agreement with Crown Estate Scotland, they are guaranteed to receive a grid connection from National Grid. We are currently taking part a process called Holistic Network Design Follow-Up, where the National Grid and developers are working together to create a national transmission system. Once we know where our grid connection will be, we will need to plan a route for delivering the electricity from our offshore wind farm to onshore substation. This is likely to be on the Aberdeenshire coast, between Stonehaven and Montrose. Any plans we make will be submitted to an open public consultation and planning processes. THE FUTURE? The Bowdun Offshore Wind Farm will be built between 2029 and 2033. By 2033, it will be producing enough power for 1.4 million homes (according to current estimates). In the meantime, we are surveying the site (using lidar to measure the movements of sea birds and mammals, and surveying the seabed) and deciding on the wind farm’s layout and turbine designs. We will need to compile lots of independent reports in order to obtain consent to build the site from Marine Scotland (submission will be in 2025). Opportunities for young people. By the time we transport our first turbines out to sea (2029-2030), we will need welders, subsea tech developers, engineers, and cable installers (we can add roles like marine biologists, data scientists and subsea robotics developers too). Many of those who could construct our project sites will now be in Aberdeenshire’s secondary schools, and when it comes to the later operation of the sites, they might well be in pre-school right now. See www.twp.scot for our timelines and more information about us and our projects.
