Over the last weekend, Belgium’s GeoSea installed the final foundation at the 332MW Nordsee One offshore wind farm located approximately 40 kilometres north of the island of Juist in the German part of the North Sea.
All 54 monopile foundations were also fitted with the associated transition pieces for the installation of the tower segments. This fully completes all of the 54 foundations six weeks ahead of schedule.
John Brace, CEO of Northland Power, said: “Completion of the foundation installation puts us one step closer to the finish line on Nordsee One. I would like to acknowledge the collective efforts of the N1 project team and contractors, and our partner RWE, who have each gone above and beyond to get us to this point.”
Throughout the installation process , four foundations and four transition pieces at a time were loaded on to the installation vessel Innovation at Cuxhaven for transportation to the offshore construction site. The foundations were erected at water depths of 26 to 29 meters. The foundations were produced by Ambau in Bremen and Cuxhaven.
“Thanks to strong cooperation between our team and partners, we have installed 54 foundations and the associated transition pieces in only four months. During installation we have fulfilled at all times the high, German environmental standards,” Tim Kittelhake, Managing Director (COO) of Nordsee One GmbH, said.
“In the days ahead, we will begin installation of the inter-array cables, and this summer we will install the substation. We expect wind turbine installation to begin early in 2017.”
Once commissioned in 2017, the wind farm is expected to produce an annual output of more than 1,300 gigawatt-hours of electrical energy, enough to supply the equivalent of some 400,000 German households. Nordsee One is owned by Northland Power Inc. (85%) and RWE International SE (15%).