DEME Offshore’s installation vessel Orion has installed the offshore substation for the 500 MW Fécamp wind farm offshore France.
After being constructed at the end of June, the 2,200-tonne topside for the offshore substation left the Chantiers de l’Atlantique shipyard a month later.
Atlantique Offshore Energy, a marine business unit of Chantiers de l’Atlantique, secured the contract for the construction of the substation in 2020, together with its partners GE Grid Solutions and DEME Group’s SDI.
Atlantique Offshore Energy was in charge of the topside and jacket foundation design, manufacturing, and onshore commissioning. Under a contract signed last year, the company will also be responsible for the maintenance of the offshore substation.
GE Grid Solutions was in charge of high and medium-voltage electrical equipment and protection control systems design, manufacturing, and commissioning, while SDI was responsible for the transport and installation.
The OSS jacket foundation was manufactured by Rosetti Marino, which cut the first steel for the jacket at the beginning of last year, while Chantiers de l’Atlantique kicked off the construction of the topside in September 2020.
The four piles for the OSS jacket foundation, which weighs 1,300 tonnes, were installed by DEME Offshore’s jack-up vessel Sea Installer in April 2022.
The Fécamp offshore wind farm will feature 71 Siemens Gamesa SWT-7.0-154 wind turbines, all of which will stand on gravity-based foundations with the first units already installed at the construction site located more than 13 kilometres off the coast of Normandy, France.
The project is being jointly developed by Eolien Maritime France (EMF), a joint venture between the French company EDF Renouvelables; EIH S.à.rl, owned by Enbridge Inc. and CPP Investments; and wpd offshore.
Once fully commissioned next year, the offshore wind farm will produce the equivalent of the annual electricity consumption of 770,000 people, or 60 per cent of the inhabitants of Seine-Maritime.