Offshore wind farm project reaches milestone point
Work on the Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm has a reached a milestone stage with the installation of all turbine foundation pieces.
The 54 monopile transition pieces mark another key step in the project’s offshore construction, 15km off the Angus coast.
It comes just two months after all the project’s 54 giant monopiles were installed at the North Sea site.
Each transition piece stands at 28 metres tall, roughly the height of an eight-storey building, has an outer diameter of 8.3 meters, and weighs approximately 700 tonnes.
They provide a stable interface between the project’s monopiles and the wind turbine towers which will be placed on top.
Seaway7’s heavy lift crane vessel Seaway Alfa Lift has sailed to and from Forth Port’s marshalling yard in Leith, collecting and installing six transition pieces per trip.
Inch Cape Project Director John Hill said: “Installing all the 54 transition pieces is a major achievement for the Inch Cape team and a terrific step forward for the project.
“This opens the site for the next campaign of array cable installation and for the start of turbine installation later in the year.”
The transition piece scope has been a tremendous collaborative effort with input from multiple contractors including engineering designers SLPE, fabricators CWHI and CFHI, Forth Projects for the marshalling work at Leith, Global Energy Solutions for the completion works and Seaway7 for the installation.
Niamh Thompson, Seaway7 senior project manager, said: “The successful installation of all 54 transition pieces from the Seaway Alfa Lift marks an important milestone for the project and reflects the dedication, expertise and co-operation shown by our teams.
“With this phase now complete, our focus turns to the installation of the pin piles in preparation for the jacket campaign later this year.
“We will continue to build on this success and maintain our focus on safe, efficient and high-quality execution as we move forward with the delivery of our scope on the Inch Cape project.”
Each transition piece features a boat landing system, access ladder and external work platform enabling technicians and engineers to enter the wind turbine tower for maintenance during the project’s operational phase.
Attention now turns to the 54 pin piles, which will be installed using a specially designed pile installation frame before the installation of the project’s 18 jacket foundations.
Further offshore construction to come this year will be the completion of the burial of the second export cable and the installation of the first array cables and first wind turbines.
Inch Cape is owned in a 50/50 equal joint venture by ESB (Ireland) and Red Rock Renewables.
Inch Cape Offshore Limited is the developer of the 1080MW Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm, on a site covering 150 square kilometres.
It will feature 72 wind turbines and a single offshore substation and the power it generates will be transported 85 kilometres via export cables to a new substation being built on the East Lothian coast.