Mating of Hywind Scotland Floating Turbines (Video)

Statoil has shared a great video showing the mating of one of Hywind Scotland’s Siemens 6MW turbines with its SPAR-type floating foundation off Stord, Norway.

The video shows the semi-submersible crane vessel Saipem 7000 lifting one of the five pre-assembled turbines and transporting it to the verticalized foundation.

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 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, owned by Statoil (75%) and Masdar (25%), is expected to be commissioned in late 2017.

Video: Statoil