Danish shipping company World Marine Offshore has been contracted by Iberdrola Renovables Offshore Deutschland to provide crew transfer vessels (CTVs) during O&M for the 350MW Wikinger offshore wind farm in Germany.
Iberdola Renovables Offshore Deutschland GmbH is developing Wikinger in the German Baltic Sea. The wind farm is located in water depths around 30-40m and will consist of 70 Adwen 5MW wind turbines and one offshore substation, scheduled to be operational by the end of 2017.
World Marine Offshore’s CEO, Lars Zøhner , said: “This contract for two new-builds to Iberdrola is very important to us at World Marine. Building on the experience and popularity of our current fleet of 12 and 24 passengers SWATH Trimarans, we are pushing the limits and are building another set of highly specialized CTVs for this contract. We are honored that Iberdrola have entrusted us with the contract, and we look forward to delivering these two ground breaking CTVs during 2017.”
The new 32m vessels will feature a combined diesel electric and battery propulsion. They will be able to carry 20 tons of cargo on the foredeck to provide optimized logistics during the O&M period.
“We will during 2017 open our second office in Germany, so we are now represented in both the Baltic region and North Sea region. It is important for us to be close to our clients and with the opening of this new office in Sassnitz we will be able to provide the best possible support to Iberdrola,” Zohner said.
Alvaro Martinez, Wikinger Operations Director at Iberdrola, said: “We look forward to welcoming two new state-of-the-art crew transfer vessels to Wikinger in 2017. The advanced design and capabilities of the vessels will help the team to make the best use of available weather windows offshore, which will contribute towards improved windfarm production. Additionally, the vessels are very much designed with the comfort of the passenger in mind, a key feature when we consider the transit distances involved for our offshore technicians. WMO will be a key partner for Iberdrola at Wikinger and we are confident that their experience of windfarm operations to date in both the north and Baltic Sea will be a great benefit to the Wikinger project.”