Seabed preparation work coming up at Inch Cape offshore wind farm site

Seabed preparation activities are scheduled to begin at the Inch Cape offshore wind farm site in Scotland at the end of March.

N-Sea, which has been contracted for the job, will start the work within the array site and the export cable corridor on or around March 30 and continue until November 2025.

Seabed preparation will include relocating boulders and identifying and mitigating any unexploded ordnance (UXO) that may affect the installation of offshore structures, inter-array cables, and export cables.

The boulder relocation vessel, FS Aries, is expected to arrive at the site on or around March 30 and the UXO identification and mitigation vessel, 4-Winds, will arrive on or around April 4, according to a Notice to Mariners from the project team.

The developers of the 1.1 GW Inch Cape offshore wind farm, ESB and Red Rock Renewables, reached the financial close on the Scottish project in January, progressing it into the offshore construction phase.

The Inch Cape offshore wind farm is located 15 kilometers off the East Coast of Scotland and covers a total of 150 square kilometers.

The 1,080 MW project will comprise 72 Vestas V236-15.0 MW turbines installed on a mix of monopile and jacket foundations, as well as an offshore substation and two 85-kilometre AC export cables, delivering power to an onshore substation, currently under construction at Cockenzie, East Lothian.

Inch Cape is expected to produce first power in late 2026 and to be fully commissioned in 2027.

The project will be operated out of a purpose-built operations and maintenance (O&M) base at the Port of Montrose, in Angus.