Marine engineering services provider DEME Offshore has secured a €200m contract from Danish energy giant Ørsted to install foundations and turbines at its 1.4GW Hornsea Two offshore wind farm in the UK.
Image: DEME’s Sea Installer installing offshore wind turbine. Photo: Courtesy of DEME.
As part of the contract, DEME Offshore will transport and install 165 monopile foundations and carry out scour protection. The monopoles will be installed by DEME’s DP3 offshore installation vessel ‘Orion’. The new vessel which is claimed to feature high transport and load capacity and also a crane with 5,000 tonne lifting capacity.
DEME Offshore will also transport and install the 165 of Siemens Gamesa’s 8.4MW turbines at the wind farm. For turbine installation, the company will use its ‘Sea Challenger’ and ‘Sea Installer’ vessels. Turbine installation is expected to be completed by early 2022.
DEME Offshore general manager Bart De Poorter said: “We are delighted with this major contract award from Ørsted, which once again highlights our vast track record and technical expertise in providing innovative solutions for the offshore wind industry. We look forward to working with Ørsted and to leverage our joint expertise to successfully and safely deliver this major project.”
Located nearly 89km from the Yorkshire coast in the North Sea, the 1.4GW Hornsea Two offshore wind farm will generate enough clean electricity to power more than 1.3 million UK households annually. The wind farm, which will be spread across in an area of 400km², borders the northern and western edge of the Hornsea One wind farm, where DEME Offshore is already working on the foundations, turbines and export cable works.
This project is expected to significantly add to UK’s goal of generating renewable electricity and in avoiding carbon emissions.
The wind farm received development consent from the UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in August 2016 and the final investment decision was taken in September 2017. In August 2015, Ørsted acquired the project rights through the acquisition of SMartWind, a joint venture between Mainstream Renewable Power and Siemens Financial Services.
The construction phase of the project is expected to generate nearly 2,000 jobs and during the operational phase nearly 130 permanent jobs will be created during its 25 years of life expectancy.