ESS Wraps Up £5M Race Bank Seabed Clearance Work

Ecosse Subsea Systems (ESS) has completed a seabed clearance project on DONG Energy’s Race Bank offshore wind farm, clearing more than 3,000 boulders at the site.

ESS teams mobilised several vessels in two campaigns, including the Siem Topaz and Siem Sapphire, on a multi-phased workscope which lasted approximately 175 shipping days, and deployed the latest version of its SCAR 2 Seabed System, a multi-purpose plough capable of boulder clearing, trenching and various seabed route preparation works, while a Multi-Function ROV grab was used to remove boulders and debris which were more sparsely located or situated in awkward positions.

The boulder clearing took place across the export corridor, array cable routes and turbine locations, with 30-metre plus clearance corridors created using multi-pass capability.

The £5 million contract followed the completion of a similar project by ESS on DONG Energy’s Westermost Rough offshore wind farm.

Race Bank will consist of 91 turbines of 6MW each and generate enough electricity to power more than 500,000 homes.