Transition piece manufacturer(s) wanted for large-scale offshore wind farm in Germany

A Germany-headquartered offshore wind developer has launched a tender seeking transition piece supplier(s) for its large-scale wind farm offshore Germany.

EnBW, the developer of the 900 MW He Dreiht offshore wind farm in the North Sea, issued a call for tender for the supply of transition pieces (TPs) for monopile foundations on 18 August, looking for manufacturers that have either the full capacity of delivering all the 64 TPs for the project, or those that could supply part of the required number of TPs with the minimum number of TPs to be delivered by one manufacturer being 20.

The scope of the contract(s), which are expected to be awarded in early 2022, includes the engineering, procurement, manufacturing of TPs – and their delivery to the currently planned marshalling port in Eemshaven, the Netherlands.

Requests to participate in the tender can be submitted until 2 September, with the invitation to tender expected to be sent to selected candidates on or around 13 September.

Earlier this year, EnBW selected the German engineering company Jörss — Blunck — Ordemann GmbH for the detailed design of wind turbine substructures and foundations for the He Dreiht project, following a tender first launched in April 2020.

In December 2020, the developer launched a tender seeking monopile supplier(s) for the 900 MW offshore wind farm, for which the contract(s) are anticipated to be awarded soon, as the contract commencement date has been set to the end of November 2021.

The company has also put the transport and installation of the foundations to tender, with the contract for this work anticipated to be awarded by the end of this year.

Last month, EnBW pre-selected the Vestas 15 MW wind turbine as the model the He Dreiht offshore wind farm would feature, but the companies did not specify how many units the offshore wind farm would comprise, making the TP tender the first to reveal an approximate turbine number He Dreiht’s array will have.

EnBW secured rights to develop the 900 MW He Dreiht project, located some 85 kilometres north of the Borkum Island, in 2017, by placing a zero-subsidy bid in the first competitive tender in Germany.

Offshore construction work is scheduled to start in the first quarter of 2024 and the offshore wind farm is expected to be commissioned in 2025.