Installation work about to start on Scotland’s new offshore wind farm

Offshore installation work is set to start this month on a new offshore wind farm to be built off the Scottish coast, for which one of Saipem’s crane vessels and Prysmian’s cable laying vessels will soon mobilise.

The DP2 heavy lift vessel S3000 is currently in the Port of Schiedam and will be mobilised for the project from the Port of Rotterdam in the coming days.

Around the same time, Prysmian’s cable laying vessel Cable Enerprise will mobilise from the Port of Middlesbrough, according to the latest information from the Scottish offshore wind project.

On 14 June, at the earliest, both vessels are scheduled to start working on the Neart na Gaoithe (NnG) offshore wind farm off the Fife coast, where S3000 will be installing jacket foundation pin piles and Cable Enterprise laying the export cables.

Saipem’s S3000 will install three pin piles for each of the project’s jacket foundations supporting 54 wind turbines and two offshore substations.

The work will be supported by the Skandi Acergy offshore construction vessel, which will arrive at the site in late June. Skandi Acergy will transfer supporting materials and installation equipment between positions on the seabed adjacent to each foundation location.

A supply vessel will also be utilised to transport piles to the offshore wind farm, as required, according to the latest Notice to Mariners from the Neart na Gaoithe project.

On the export cable routes, the vessel Norne will perform a pre-lay grapnel run before the cables are laid. Norne will carry out the pre-lay grapnel run to retrieve any potential abandoned fishing gear or ships crane wires that may be present along the export cable routes.

Cable Enterprise will then start the export cable laying at the landfall site, as close to the horizontal directional drill (HDD) exit pit as possible. Once the first 750 metres of cable are laid, a pull-in winch located onshore will draw the section through the HDD ducts. Once complete, the vessel will begin to lay the cable along the export cable route in the direction of the offshore wind farm, the operations update from the NnG project states.

The export cable will be buried into the seabed by remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) launched by the Normand Pacific. The burial campaign for the first export cable is expected to commence in late June.

Offshore construction at the offshore wind farm site, located some 15 kilometres off the Fife coast, commenced last summer when Saipem’s vessel S7000 started installing pile casings.

Saipem’s scope of work, under an EPCI contract, includes the supply and installation of 54 jacket foundations, two steel foundation jackets for the offshore electrical substations, and the transportation and installation of the substation topsides.

Prysmian is responsible for the design, supply, installation, and commissioning of two HVAC 220 kV three-core extruded export submarine cables with single-wire armouring, which will reach land at Thorntonloch beach in East Lothian. The Italian company will also provide two 220 kV extruded land cables circuits that will link the landfall area to the substation at Crystal Rig and two 400 kV extruded land cables circuits to link the Crystal Rig substation to the Scottish Power’s substation.

The 450 MW Neart na Gaoithe, owned by EDF Renewables and ESB, will comprise 54 Siemens Gamesa 8 MW turbines and is scheduled to be fully commissioned in 2023.