Jan De Nul and China Merchant Heavy Industry (CMHI) have begun the construction of the 5,000-tonne floating installation crane vessel Les Alizés.
Les Alizés is specifically designed for loading, transporting, lifting, and installing offshore wind turbine foundations.
It will be capable of building the newest generation of offshore wind farms once delivered in April 2022, but is also suitable for decommissioning offshore oil & gas platforms.
Main features include a main crane of 5,000 tons, a deck loading capacity of 61,000 tons, a deck space of 9,300 m², as well as 6 × MAN 12V32/44CR main engines .
SCHOTTEL will provide a full propulsion package and Red Rock will supply three knuckle telescopic offshore cranes.
Les Alizés will be equipped with an exhaust gas filtering technology that complies with the EURO STAGE V guidelines for emissions on land and inland waterways.
Additionally, it will be fitted with an Energy Storage System (ESS), forming a hybrid setup with the main diesel engines, which will compensate power peaks on the main engines and recover energy from the heavy-lift crane, resulting in optimized engine operation and less fuel consumption and emissions, Jan De Nul said.