Geotechnical survey coming up at West of Orkney Windfarm site

Geotechnical survey work is set to start this month at the West of Orkney Windfarm site offshore Scotland.

The survey to ascertain sub-seabed characteristics at the project site will be carried out by Geo using the survey vessel Connector, starting on or around August 30. The campaign will take approximately eleven days, subject to weather conditions.

The vessel will mobilize and demobilize either from the port of Peterhead or the port of Aberdeen with any interim port calls out of the port of Scrabster.

For the geotechnical investigation, Geo will be using Ultra Short Baseline positioning and Deep-push CPTu equipment.

The West of Orkney Windfarm is being developed by a joint venture between TotalEnergies, Corio Generation, and Renewable Infrastructure Development Group (RIDG) which secured the development rights from Crown Estate Scotland in the ScotWind leasing round in 2022.

Last year, the project became the first ScotWind proposal to submit both its offshore consent application to Scottish Ministers and its onshore planning application to The Highland Council, which was recently approved.

The offshore wind farm site is located 30 kilometers west of Orkney and 25 kilometers north of the Sutherland coast.

The 2 GW West of Orkney Windfarm is planned to feature 125 wind turbines on fixed foundations, with construction expected to begin in 2027.

The offshore wind farm is anticipated to generate its first electricity in 2029.