The first six monopiles EEW SPC produced for Ørsted’s Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm were loaded onboard SAL Heavy Lift’s crane vessel Svenja in the Rostock port and will now be on their way to Able Seaton Port in the UK, where they will be stored until the installation starts.
The first 48 monopiles need to be shipped by the end of January 2018 and EEW SPC said it will be ready for load-out three weeks earlier.
In total, the company will produce 174 monopile foundations.
Initially, Ørsted planned to use 116 monopile foundations and 58 suction bucket foundations for the wind farm, but later decided to use only monopile foundations for the project. This resulted in extending the fabrication contract with EEW SPC to cover all 174 foundations for what will become the biggest wind farm in the world.
Each monopile is about 65m long, weighs around 800t and has a diameter of 8.1m.