Fraunhofer IWES to survey German offshore wind zone

Fraunhofer IWES has secured a contract to provide geophysical investigation and hydrographic survey services at the N-9.4 offshore wind zone in the German North Sea.

The work will be carried out in 2022 as part of the preliminary investigations of the seabed at the zone.

The contract was awarded by Germany’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency.

The overriding goal of the investigations is the collection and processing of hydrographic/geophysical data for provision to third parties, which should enable them to determine the market premium, the agency said.

The work is divided into two lots. Lot 1 includes the geophysical investigation of a given profile grid using sediment echo sounders and high-resolution multi-channel seismics. In addition, the processing of the recorded data sets, their evaluation and documentation, as well as the determination of suitable locations for the subsequent geotechnical explorations are included.

Lot 2 includes the area-wide measurement of the area by means of fan echo sounders, side viewing sonar including ground truth, sediment echo sounder and magnetometer as well as video investigations by means of an ROV. Data processing, evaluation, and documentation of the services is included.

The investigations should result in the acquisition of a complete grid-shaped hydroacoustic/seismic data set for geophysical preliminary exploration and thus the creation of a data basis for the subsequent geological reports and the geological models.

The N-09-04 investigation area lies in the German EEZ in the N-9 area of the FEP 2020 and has a total size of approx. 118 square kilometres. The investigation area relates to the project area N-9.4 of the FEP, but is not completely identical in its geometry, and goes beyond it, the agency said. The investigations cover a total profile length of approximately 1,616 kilometres.

The investigation area N-09-0 4 is some 16 to 33 kilometres northwest of the Veja Mate and BARD Offshore 1 wind fams

The water depths are 40 to 42 metres (LAT).