The first of the total 5 turbines for the Hywind Scotland project has been lifted onto its floating foundation in Stord, Norway, and is ready for the deployment off the Scottish coast.
Over the last several days, the first three turbines have been undergoing installation on the floating substructures off the quay at the assembly base in Stord, according to Aibel, which has been playing an active role in the project since 2014. The final two turbines are scheduled to be hoisted out in July, the company said.
The turbines will lie moored in the fjord off Leirvik on Stord and undergo some final tests before being towed one by one to the field off the coast of Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland.
Statoil started assembling the Siemens 6MW turbines for the 30MW Hywind Scotland floating wind farm at the assembly site at the beginning of May . The same month, the first two of the five SPAR-type floating foundations, built by the Navantia-Windar consortium, arrived to the project’s assembly base and were unloaded off Stord before being verticalized using ballast water and aggregates, reaching a draft of more than 75 metres.
The floating wind turbines will have a total height of 258 meters, with 178 metres of the structures floating above water, and the remaining 80 metres submerged underwater.
The EUR 200 million project is scheduled for commissioning this year.