Seaway Heavy Lifting’s vessel Oleg Strashnov has installed the first of 86 jacket foundations on the 588MW Beatrice offshore wind farm in the Outer Moray Firth, Scotland.
Oleg Strashnov will complete the installation of the first phase of jackets, each of which weighs in the region of 1,000 tonnes, over the coming months.
Jacket installation activities are forecast to continue until December 2017 and then resume in May 2018, weather permitting, according to Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd (BOWL), the owner and developer of the wind farm.
The jackets, which are up to 80m tall, have been fabricated at facilities in Fife, Newcastle, Belgium and Denmark.
“Seeing the first jacket arrive from the fabricators in Newcastle and being installed offshore is yet another testament to the hard work and determination of everyone involved in the BOWL project,” Steve Wilson, BOWL’s project manager, said.
“As well as being large complex structures, these jackets will be the deepest water fixed foundations of any offshore wind farm. It has taken significant time and resource to get them ready for installation in the Moray Firth so it’s a great achievement to have the first one in place.”
84 jackets will support the Beatrice wind turbines, the first of which is due to be installed in summer 2018. The remaining two jackets will each support a Siemens Offshore Transformer Module.
The Beatrice project, which will be operated from a base in Wick, will be fully operational by the end of 2019.