In a gigantic lifting operation, the jacket for the Walney 2 offshore substation was placed on the night of Tuesday 5 May 2011. Once again the heavy lift barge Rambiz entered the scene and lifted the 1,100 tonnes heavy jacket into its final position in the Irish Sea.
In order to keep the jacket placed in its position, four 60-metre long steel piles were placed in the corners of the jacket. After a thorough process, where the jacket was vertically levelled, the jacket and piles were grouted together.
The grouting needs some 24 hours to harden up before the jacket can carry the load of the top section, and since then the weather hasn’t been favourable for the lifting of the top section.
About the Walney offshore windfarm:
The Walney Offshore Windfarm project is located approximately 15km west of Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria. The project consists of Walney 1 and Walney 2 each with 51 – 3.6MW turbines, giving a total capacity of the Walney project of 367.2MW. The rotor diameter of the turbines is 107m for Walney 1 and 120m for Walney 2, with a maximum height of 150m from blade tip to sea level. The total area of the development is some 73km2.
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Source: dongenergy, May 19, 2011