EDF Renewables and ESB have chartered Fred. Olsen Windcarrier’s jack-up offshore construction vessel Blue Tern for the next stage of the drilling process at the delayed 450 MW Neart an Gaoithe (NnG) wind farm offshore Scotland.
In a social media post, NnG’s project team said that the jack-up Blue Tern is being mobilised for the job from Esbjerg in Denmark and will soon arrive at the project site off Fife.
A multi-purpose, four-legged, and self-propelled DP2 vessel, the Blue Tern can operate in water depths of up to 65 metres so is “well-suited” to support the installation of NnG’s foundations that is due to start next year.
The jack-up will join Saipem’s S3000 crane vessel which has been drafted for the installation of casings into the boreholes.
The project entered the offshore construction phase in August 2020, when Saipem’s vessel S7000 started installing pile casings but left the site last year with the job incomplete.
The offshore wind farm will comprise 54 Siemens Gamesa 8 MW wind turbines and is scheduled to be fully commissioned in 2024.
Nearth na Gaoithe, jointly owned by EDF Renewables UK and ESB, will supply enough electricity for around 375,000 homes and offset over 400,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions each year.