Merkur Receives Its First Transition Pieces

A2Sea’s jack-up vessel Sea Challenger has started installing transition pieces (TPs) at the 396MW Merkur offshore wind farm located off the coast of Germany.

The vessel is loading the TPs at the Buss Orange Blue Terminal in the Eemshaven port, the Netherlands, and transporting them to the wind farm site some 45km north of the German island of Borkum.

The terminal signed a contract with GeoSea, the main contractor for the Balance of Plant scope (EPCI), in June for the accommodation of the temporary storage, final assembly and transportation of the transition pieces to the wind farm.

The first 6 of the total of 66 TPs were transported from Spain, were they are produced by the Idesa-Windar joint venture, to Eemshaven mid-October.

In September, A2Sea signed the agreement to install the TPs on the wind farm for its new parent company GeoSea, who kicked off the installation of monopiles in April this year.

Employer of the offshore wind farm is Merkur Offshore GmbH, a joint venture between its shareholders Partners Group, InfraRed Capital Partners, DEME Concessions and Coriolis.

The Merkur offshore wind farm will consist of 66 GE Haliade 150-6MW wind turbines and is scheduled to be fully operational in 2019.