OWC secures geo work at 1 GW Irish floating wind project

Offshore Wind Consultants (OWC) has secured a contract with DP Energy to carry out geophysical and geotechnical site characterization at the potential 1 GW Inis Ealga Marine Energy Park (IEMEP) floating offshore wind project in Ireland.

OWC’s scope of work is to provide preliminary site characterization using currently available data and provide input to the planned site investigation surveys mentioned, in order to support project engineering.

To remind, in March last year, DP Energy submitted a Foreshore Site Investigation Application to Ireland’s Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government (DHPLG) for the Inis Ealga Marine Energy Park.

At the beginning of this year, Iberdrola announced it is taking a majority stake in DP Energy’s 3 GW offshore wind pipeline in Ireland.

The company plans to carry out site investigations within the proposed wind farm site, potential export cable corridors, and landfall areas to assess the site and associated seabed.

For the initial design, it is planned that the floating wind turbines will be connected via 38 kV or 66 kV inter-array cables, connected in radial strings, which will then be connected to an offshore platform with associated switchgear and protection systems and converted to 110 kV, 220 kV or 275 kV to export the power onshore.

The proposed project site is located off Cork and Waterford coasts, some 10 kilometers off Power Head, Cork, at its closest point to land.