SGS to Certify Veja Mate Offshore Wind Farm

March 9, 2015

The certification company SGS has been commissioned for the certification of the Veja Mate offshore wind farm project in the German North Sea.

The certification work ranges from the examination of the project’s fundamentals to its final design — in accordance with the standards of the German Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH).

Dr Malte Posewang, Due Diligence Project Manager (Industrial Projects Division) at SGS Germany explains: “We examine the link between the development and design phase with the execution phase early on in the process.

“This involves taking part in preliminary discussions with the counterparts responsible at Veja Mate and the relevant contractors to reconcile the requirements for certification at an early stage.”

The testing company is performing independent calculations and conducting a comprehensive examination of the documentation for the offshore wind turbine generators (OWTG), offshore substations (OSS) and inter array cables (IAC). This includes a conformity assessment of all documents relevant to the BSH standard.

The BSH standard sets mandatory minimum requirements and specifications for the required geological-geophysical and geotechnical soil investigations, as well as for the construction of the various structural components used in offshore wind farms.

SGS’s scope of testing includes steel construction and corrosion protection, geotechnical engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, occupational safety, and transportation, installation and decommissioning concepts, and much more.

SGS will accompany the Veja Mate offshore project from the first BSH-approval phase until the receipt of the third BSH approval.

The Veja Mate project is located approximately 100 kilometres off the coast of the German North Sea. Wind turbines with a rated output of 400 MW are being installed across an area of 50 square kilometres.

The initial term of the certification project until the award of the second and third BSH approvals will be about two years.