Heerema Marine Contractors’ (HMC) heavy lift vessel Aegir has installed the first three 100 per cent made-in-Taiwan wind turbine jacket foundations at the 900 MW Greater Changhua 1 & 2a offshore wind farms.
The first batch of jacket foundations fully manufactured in Taiwan by Sing Da Marine Structure (SDMS) were loaded out of the Port of Kaohsiung on 15 August.
Each unit weighs more than 1,200 tonnes with a height of approximately 80 metres, and comprises more than a thousand components.
The jacket foundations are custom designed to meet the special weather and seabed conditions for the Greater Changhua 1 & 2a wind farms to ensure that they can last for at least 25-30 years.
Aegir completed the foundation installation on Greater Changhua 2a in May and then moved on to do the same work on Greater Changhua 1.
Back in 2018, Ørsted ordered 56 jacket foundations for the project at SDMS. The units were originally planned to be delivered throughout 2020 and 2021.
The installation of the first three jacket foundations comes after HMC announced that they completed the final pin pile load-out for the offshore wind project.
The Changhua 1 and 2a wind farms will comprise a total of 111 Siemens Gamesa 8 MW turbines.
Seajack Scylla , a wind turbine installation vessel operated by Seajacks, part of Eneti Inc., is installing the wind turbines at the project site located 35-50 kilometres off the coast of Changhua County.
In April, the offshore wind farm produced its first power after the installation and energisation of the first batch of turbines.
Ørsted has postponed the full commissioning of the wind farms from the end of 2022 to 2023, citing delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic as the main reason.
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