Uncrewed surface vessel starts survey at UK offshore wind farm

A remotely operated uncrewed surface vessel (USV) has been deployed for a hydrographic survey on an operational offshore wind farm in the UK.

After several tasks off the UK coasts this year, including on the operational Greater Gabbard and Hornsea One offshore wind farms, as well as the Berwick Bank and Marr Bank sites off Scotland, an XOCEAN USV has now been deployed on the Thanet offshore wind farm.

The USV was mobilised on 19 July from Ramsgate Harbour in Kent, where it will transit to and from the the offshore wind farm while performing a hydrographic survey until 26 July.

The 300 MW Thanet, built by Vattenfall in 2010, consists of 100 Vestas V90 wind turbines, installed in water depths of 20–25 metres approximately 12 kilometres off Foreness Point, the easternmost part of Kent.

In January 2020, XOCEAN’s USV carried out survey work at the Greater Gabbard offshore wind farm, located 23 kilometres off the UK coast, representing a first operation of this kind in the offshore wind sector.

On Greater Gabbard, the XO-450 USV conducted seabed surveys on seven of the project’s 140 turbines.

This April, the company’s USV completed a survey at the Hornsea One offshore wind farm in the UK, its farthest offshore project so far.

The vessel was launched and recovered from shore, 120 kilometres from the offshore surveying location and conducted its offshore operation in three-and-a-half-days.

Last month, two XOCEAN uncrewed surface vessels were deployed for work at Berwick Bank and Marr Bank offshore wind farm sites in Scotland, where they performed multiple nearshore and offshore cable route surveys in water depths ranging from zero to 60 metres.