FoundOcean Awarded Nordsee Ost Foundation Grouting Contract by RWE Innogy (Germany)

FoundOcean announced the award of the foundation grouting contract for Nordsee Ost offshore wind farm in German waters by RWE Innogy.

The 295 MW capacity wind farm will be installed in water depths ranging from 22 to 25 m on four-legged jacket foundations. The 49 foundations (48 turbine and one transformer substation) will be grouted to the seabed using BASF’s Exagrout Masterflow® 9500 cement based grout.

Martin Hardy, Commercial and Technical Director for FoundOcean comments, “We are thrilled to have secured this contract with RWE Innogy following our success at Thornton Bank 2, and look forward to a long and successful relationship for all parties involved. We are extremely confident that the Exagrout will provide advanced results over other high strength grouts on the market.”

Masterflow® 9500 has been selected to secure the foundations to the seabed as it has been through rigorous testing and exhibits many pioneering properties including:

•  Zero autogenous shrinkage, a factor which has been shown to cause cracking in high-strength concrete structures.
• Ability to be pumped at temperatures down to 0 ºC which increases the opportunity of lengthening the available installation season, meaning that the OWF could be operational and generating revenues quicker.
• Rapid strength build-up to support increased installation rate and to guarantee safe structures at an early age.
• Low heat of hydration, eliminating the risk of thermal cracking.
• 28-day compressive strengths of 140MPa.

Luc Westhof, Key Account Manager for Wind Power at BASF comments, “Marrying BASF’s world leading chemical manufacturing capabilities and FoundOcean’s extensive offshore experience means that foundation installers and wind farm developers can be confident in the integrity of the grouted connection.”

 Charles Elins, Regional Projects Manager UK and Ireland for BASF, adds: “We have been developing performance grouts for over 100 years and our wind turbine grouting experience, from which we have formulated our offshore solution, is well established.”

 “We are pleased to be working with FoundOcean on this ground breaking project. The synergy between our companies is evident in how we are all working towards extending the foundation installation period for this offshore windfarm: RWE Innogy is using vessels which can withstand more turbulent waters; BASF has manufactured a material which can work down to 0ºC; and FoundOcean will be using their winter-proofed equipment to mix and pump the grout,” remarked Hans Kahle, Managing Director of RWE Innogy´s Offshore Logistic Company OLC .

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Offshore WIND staff, January 23, 2012; Image: foundocean