SOVs wanted for two offshore wind farms in Germany

An operator of two offshore wind farms in Germany has opened a tender looking for a service operation vessel(s) to support operations and maintenance (O&M) campaigns on the two projects over the coming years.

Vattenfall, through the company DanTysk Sandbank Offshore Wind GmbH & Co. KG, is seeking a service operation vessel (SOV) for the DanTysk and Sandbank offshore wind farms and will consider any DP2 vessel with a suitable gangway that meets all technical, HS and EnSu requirements as an SOV.

The vessel(s) will be deployed to provide accommodation and transfer of the technicians working on the projects to the wind turbines during spring and summer service campaigns.

Since there are multiple campaigns planned from 2022 to 2026, the operator has split the tender into three lots and is looking to enter into a contract with one party providing suitable access and availability of the required vessel for one, more or all campaigns.

The contract under Lot 1 will start on 1 March 2022 and last for 5-6 months with options to extend it for 15 days four times. Lot 2 covers the campaign starting on 1 March or 1 April 2023 that will also take 5-6 months and includes the same extension option as Lot 1.

Lot 3 is optional and involves campaigns for 2024, 2025, and 2026. Since DanTysk-Sandbank operating model might change for 2024, this lot allows for entering into an agreement with one Owner on optional for Employer but binding for the Owner with 9 months’ notice (by 1/6 of the previous year) from Employer. If vessel is not called up one year options for any following years is cancelled, the tender notice states.

Requests to participate in the tender can be submitted until 4 August and the tender invitation to selected candidates is expected to be issued on 23 August of this year.

After its last tender for an SOV to support 2021 maintenance campaign at DanTysk and Sandbank offshore wind farms, Vattenfall chose Island Offshore’s walk-to-work (W2W) vessel Island Diligence.

The company has also recently opened a tender for O&M services for the two offshore wind farms, saying DanTysk and Sandbank will both come under a new joint operating strategy with the annual O&M services required to be put to tender accordingly.

The 288 MW DanTysk offshore wind farm, located some 70 kilometres west of the island of Sylt, comprises 80 Siemens Gamesa 3.6 MW turbines that have been in operation since 2014.

Sandbank offshore wind farm has been in operation since 2017. The wind farm also has a 288 MW capacity and its 72 Siemens Gamesa 4 MW turbines are spinning some 90 kilometres west of Sylt.