Rampion OWF – A Noisy Neighbour

On Tuesday, the installation of foundations at the Rampion offshore wind farm kept awake some of the people living in the area, resulting in several complaints received by E.ON, the project developer.

According to BBC, loud thumping noise coming from the offshore construction site had awoken some of the residents after midnight and disturbed their sleep for four hours.

E.ON apologised for the inconvenience and said it is investigating why the noise was more noticeable than before, given that the piling work has been running since February.

The company added that the activities might have been more audible due to several factors combined, including weather, background ambient noise level, the size of the pile and nature of the seabed.

Piling work to install wind turbine foundations at the 400MW Rampion offshore wind farm recommenced at the beginning of this month, following a pause due to the black bream spawning season.

Two jack up barges – the MPI Discovery and Pacific Orca – are deployed to install the foundations by using a 1,000-tonne crane to lift each foundation upright before lowering it and piling it into the seabed.