Dounreay Trì Champions Local Content

Swedish design and engineering company Hexicon AB has, through Dounreay Trì Limited, awarded the construction contract for a novel floating wind farm off the northern coast of Scotland to Scottish energy sector service company, Global Energy Group.

The works will be carried out at the Group’s Nigg Energy Park facility in the Highlands, and the project is subject to Marine Scotland and Scottish Ministers processing the planning application by 31 March 2017.

If approved, the wind farm will be deployed in Scottish Territorial Waters approximately 9 kilometres off Dounreay, Caithness, in the summer of 2018.

”We have the right experience and facilities to fully support the contract requirements and once planning is confirmed we envisage fabrication works will commence in Summer 2017, with assembly works within Nigg Energy Park’s Dry Dock facility through to the first half of 2018,” Ian Cobban, Executive Vice President, Capital Projects, for Global Energy Group, said.

”The main floating structure will be around 190 m by 100 m including columns of 30 m height, making it the largest structure to be loaded out of our facility in recent years. This contract win highlights our ability to diversify our work into many different areas. At a time when we have been going through a difficult period with job losses, this will certainly provide much needed additional jobs for us and the local supply chain.”

Dounreay Trì has also entered into an agreement with the Highland port of Scrabster, near Thurso, which will service the facility.

Commenting on the agreement with Scrabster, Simon Tuchewicz, Project Operations & Maintenance Manager for Dounreay Trì said: “Dounreay Trì are delighted to enter into this Memorandum of Understanding with the Scrabster Harbour Trust for the development of the port into the Project Maintenance Hub. Scrabster Harbour is an excellent facility, with great local infrastructure and support services that we believe can fully meet the Operation and Maintenance requirements over the 25-year Project life.”

The Dounreay Trì twin turbine project will be capable of generating 10MW of electricity, enough to power around 8,000 homes. By opening up the deeper waters off the north and west coast of Scotland the new floating wind farms can make a significant contribution to helping Scotland meet its renewable energy targets.