This week, Natural England kindly invited me to their Offshore Wind Face to Face Event for staff, situated in the bustling city of Brighton. I had the pleasure of meeting offshore wind staff from across the UK - from Devon, to all the way in Glasgow, sit in on current conversations and experience a trip of a lifetime to see wind turbines up close.
Before we get into the event, let’s begin with all of the cool photos of the trip offshore.
Rampion Offshore Wind Farm is the first offshore wind farm off the south coast of England. It generates almost 1400 Gigawatt hours of power each year, which is enough to power around half the homes in Sussex! It’s 13-20 km from the Sussex coast, stretching from East Worthing to Brighton and covering an area of 72 square kilometers1.
A Natural England staff member trying the VR Wind Farm experience
Before heading offshore, we visited the Rampion Visitor Centre, situated right next to Brighton Pier. The Centre has a virtual reality (VR) experience, which really did give the illusion that I was there at the wind farm climbing the turbines and looking out to sea at the top of one. The Centre has a host of interactive equipment explaining the importance of wind power as a renewable solution, the future of offshore wind and the process from start to finish of how Rampion creates power. In the wind turbine images above, you can see a few features of how the wind turbines were built to maximise the power generated. Read the features below and see if you can spot them in the image.
A model of one of the Offshore Export Cable that transfers energy from the wind turbines back to the coast.
Lucky for me, I got to put the accuracy of the VR to the test by taking the boat out offshore to experience the sheer capacity of the Rampion Offshore Wind Farm in person.
Jasmine on the boat with Rampion’s wind turbines in the background.
Rampion’s substation
The image shows the offshore substation at Rampion – this enables the wind farm to operate more efficiently and reduce energy losses, by transforming electricity from 33kV up to 150kV, before it is exported to shore.
The sheer size of the wind turbines was amazing to see up-close, particularly the blades which are each 55m long. It was an amazing experience!
Before our trip offshore, I had the pleasure of attending Natural England’s face to face offshore wind conference. I got to network and make some great new connections with such lovely, passionate people and learn about Natural England’s marine visions and how together they can continue to create a more centralised strategic approach to their advisory role.
There were great presentations from great speakers, including how smart innovative technology can accelerate offshore wind, how to decommision a wind farm most effectively, current and future projects to protect our seabirds in trouble and how to install cables to minimise environmental damage as much as possible.
Tim Pick, the UK’s Offshore Wind Champion, also came to speak to us about his independent report on his recommendations to accelerate Offshore Wind deployment in the UK. If you’d like to read the report, please check out the link below.
A BIG thank you to Sally Hawkins-Brown and Tamara Rowson for their organisation of the event and making me feel so welcome, and thank you Sally for always keeping me in the loop!
1. https://www.rampionoffshore.com/wind-farm/
Jasmine
