UK: Mabey Bridge Secures First Offshore Renewables Contract

Mabey Bridge – which opened its £38m wind turbine tower factory in May 2011 – has sealed its first offshore renewables contract.

The deal – with Fugro Seacore – will see a 46m-long, 2.5m-diameter, 170-tonne monopile manufactured and delivered to E.ON. It will to be used as the foundation for a met mast for the Rampion Offshore Wind Farm, which is proposed 13km from the nearest point offshore in Sussex, south east England.

Manufacturing of the monopile and topside is already underway at Mabey Bridge’s 33,000m² bespoke Chepstow-based manufacturing facility. The monopile will be delivered to installation contractor Fugro Seacore in March 2012.

A monopile is a can-rolled steel tube embedded in the seabed which provides the foundation for the topside structure above sea level. In this case, a met mast will sit on top of the monopile.

Met masts analyse weather and wind patterns, to allow wind farm developers such as E.ON to design the optimum layout for offshore wind farms.

Fugro Seacore was attracted by Mabey Bridge’s status as one of the UK’s only indigenous producers of wind turbine towers.

David Buzzard, project manager of Fugro Seacore, said: “We have been really impressed by what we have seen from Mabey Bridge since we started talking to them. The company’s facility in South Wales is impressive and they are clearly delivering in what is a new market place for them. We had no hesitation in awarding this contract to Mabey Bridge.”

Alex Smale, UK director of Mabey Bridge, said: “We’re transferring over the skills we have developed in manufacturing high-specification wind turbine towers to similar structures such as monopiles and we are delighted that Fugro Seacore has demonstrated faith in our abilities.”

“This is engineering on a grand scale, just like our worldwide bridge-building business whose heritage stretches back more than 160 years.”

E.ON was awarded the right to seek consent to develop a large-scale offshore wind farm off the Sussex coastline by the Crown Estate in the Round 3 offshore wind programme.

E.ON has started detailed environmental and engineering surveys within the zone to fully understand the potential of the area, and believes that this will support a wind farm with a capacity of up to 700MW. E.ON is about to embark on a 12-week community consultation of its draft proposals.

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Offshore WIND staff, March 07, 2012; Image: seacore