Humber Wind Base

The brief

The Humber Wind Base supplies 80 turbines in the North Sea, 89 km off the Yorkshire coast. Each turbine stands on a monopile up to 9 metres wide and 90 metres long, driven 40 metres into the seabed. The developer wanted foundation steel with the lowest possible carbon footprint, delivered on a fixed nine-month schedule.

What we supplied

We rolled 42,000 tonnes of heavy plate in thicknesses from 60 to 110 mm at our Luleå mill. The steel was made from our own iron ore, reduced with hydrogen instead of coal and melted in electric arc furnaces running on fossil-free power. Every plate was ultrasonically tested and traced back to its melt.

How we delivered it

The plates left our own quay in Luleå in 14 sailings, timed to the fabrication yard’s rolling schedule so no stock sat waiting on the Humber. Our engineers worked with the yard’s welding team from the first trial weld to the last monopile.

The result

All 80 foundations were installed on time. Because the steel was made with hydrogen, the project avoided about 61,000 tonnes of CO₂ compared with blast-furnace plate, a figure verified by a third party and included in the developer’s own climate reporting.