Van Oord joins Seaway 7 on Seagreen offshore wind project

Seaway 7, the main Seagreen contractor, has contracted Van Oord to install scour protection around the 114 wind turbine foundations at the Seagreen wind farm offshore Scotland.

The wind turbines for this 1.1 GW offshore wind farm located 27 kilometres off the coast of Angus will be installed on three-legged jacket foundations.

After the installation of these jackets, scour protection is required to avoid the effects of erosion. This is achieved by high precision rock installation around the jackets, Van Oord said.

For this specific project, which started at the end of October 2021, Van Oord is deploying high dynamic flexible fallpipe vessel Bravenes.

This vessel has a unique method for subsea rock installation thanks to the automated fallpipe system that can be skidded over the side of the vessel. This results in highly accurate and efficient rock installation in close vicinity to the jacket foundations using a powerful Remote Operating Vehicle (ROV), according to Van Oord.

In addition, flexible fallpipe vessel Nordnes will be deployed to install scour protection on several cable crossings. All subsea activities will take place in water depths of up to 50 metres.

When completed, the Seagreen offshore wind farm will be Scotland’s largest, and the world’s deepest, fixed-bottom offshore wind farm.

The project is a £3 billion joint venture between SSE Renewables and TotalEnergies. SSE Renewables is leading the development and construction of the project, supported by TotalEnergies, and will operate Seagreen on completion.