EnBW announced that construction at the Hohe See and Albatros offshore wind complex has resumed, as two new vessels have been deployed for installing foundation components.
Image: EnBW resumes construction at Hohe See and Albatros wind complex. Photo: Courtesy of photographer Rolf Otzipka, Siemens Gamesa and EnBW.
Hohe See and Albatros wind farms are being built in the North Sea and will jointly generate 610MW of clean electricity, to power nearly German 710,000 households.
Hohe See will have a capacity of 497MW and Albatros will have 112MW of capacity. When operational, the wind farms could help avoid nearly 1.9 million tonnes of CO2 emissions per year, from entering the atmosphere.
EnBW stated that construction on the wind farms is continuing with the help of two vessels namely Innovation and Sea installer. Innovation started sailing from Eemshaven in Holland, carrying three foundation components (monopiles) – steel pipes with a length of around 72 metres. After 10 hours of journery, the vessel began installing the foundations in the seabed at the construction site of Hohe See.
The ship Sea Installer will also begin its journey shortly. This vessel will transport the transition pieces from Rotterdam to the construction field where it will install them onto the monopiles.
The first wind turbines are expected to be installed in April. Siemens Gamesa has been selected to supply and install 87 of its SWT-7.0-154 turbines, including the foundations. The ship ‘Pacific Osprey’ already installed 63 of the total of 87 foundations last year. The wind complex is due to be connected to grid this year.
Foundation work had been stopped for six months, after an accident took place on the Pacific Osprey vessel. Last August, the main crane collapsed in the vessel when loading certain structures at Eemshaven was taking place.
The two new vessels are now installing the remaining 24 monopile foundations at the wind complex, which is about 100km from the coast of Borkum.
The company along with its partner Enbridge is investing €2.2bn for the wind farm complex. EnBW owns 50.1% of stake in the two wind farms and Enbridge owns 49.9% stake.