Boliden to Reduce Carbon Footprint of Dogger Bank Offshore Wind Farm

Swedish mining and smelting company Boliden has announced that the world’s largest offshore wind farm, Dogger Bank, has chosen to use low-carbon copper from Boliden in the high-voltage offshore export cable systems for the third phase of the project which is called ‘Dogger Bank C.’

Boliden said that by using Low-Carbon Copper, the CO2-footprint of this part of the windfarm will be reduced by more than 23,000 tons of CO2, as it has less than half of the carbon footprint of standard copper.

The low-carbon copper from Boliden has a carbon footprint of less than 1,5 Kg CO2eq/Kg of copper, which is significantly lower than the global average of 4,1 Kg CO2eq/Kg of copper. Boliden said that this is mainly achieved by access to fossil-free energy, electrification of production and an industry-leading productivity.

Daniel Peltonen, President at Boliden Smelters, said, “We are happy to be a part of this collaboration, enhancing sustainability in the value chain. This project is an excellent demonstration of what Boliden can offer regarding sustainable base metals. We are delighted that our low-carbon copper brings benefit to this project by reducing the footprint of the wind farm itself.” Boliden delves in exploration, mining, smelting and metal recycling.

Boliden informed that initially, the copper comes from ore mining in Aitik, Gällivare, which is one of Europe’s largest and world’s most productive open-pit copper mines with a high degree of electrification. The copper cathodes are then produced in Rönnskär in Skellefteå and delivered to Elcowire, Northern Europe’s leading provider of copper solutions, with train to Helsingborg to produce copper rods.

Thereafter the copper rods are delivered to NKT, cable makers, in Karlskrona to deliver the cables to Dogger Bank offshore wind farm.

Dogger Bank C

Dogger Bank Wind Farm is an offshore facility being constructed in three phases – Dogger Bank A, B and C – located between 130km and 190km from the North East coast of England. Collectively they will become the world’s largest offshore wind farm.

The entity said that each phase will have an installed generation capacity of 1.2 GW and represents a multi-billion pound investment. Combined, they will produce 3.6 GW enough to power up to 6 million homes.