Boldyn to hook up ‘world’s largest’ offshore wind farm with 4G network

The wind farm will be built 160km off the UK’s east coast, and is being constructed by Ørsted. The site will cover an area of around 696 km2 in the North Sea and have up to 200 wind turbines, apparently capable of generating energy for over 3.3 million UK homes.

Boldyn Networks will design and build a high-speed mobile network for the windfarm needed during its construction, including connectivity for ‘offices at sea’, providing workers with the internet access while working offshore for long periods of time in ‘hotels at sea’, and hooking up software systems and construction equipment beavering away to build it.

It will use a high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission that apparently allows for more efficient means of transferring power over long distances, which is supposed to reduce the costs and materials required for the project.

“Hornsea 3 marks our third wind farm delivered, reflecting our commitment to helping build a cleaner, greener future,” said Sean Keating, Managing Director, Professional and Cloud Services at Boldyn Networks. “Our expertise in deploying state of the art wireless solutions in complex and challenging environments positions us as the partner of choice. We are proud to be partnering with Ørsted once again to bring cutting-edge connectivity solutions to the world’s largest wind farm.”

Luke Bridgman, Hornsea 3 Senior Project Director at Ørsted added: “Delivering a project with the size and scale of Hornsea 3 safely and successful requires strong communication across the project. During construction, Hornsea 3 will support thousands of jobs and it’s essential that our teams are well connected throughout this phase. We look forward to working with Boldyn Networks as we progress our plans for offshore construction.”

Boldyn has form in the area of offshore connectivity projects – having hooked up the Moray East wind farm in Scotland (when it was called Vilicom), and the deployment of a 4G mobile network at Hornsea 2 wind farm.

The firm is a growing presence in the neutral host space, and recently agreed to purchase Cellnex’s private networks business unit incorporating Edzcom for an undisclosed sum.