Ahead of the construction start of the Beatrice offshore wind farm in April, Siem Offshore is set to begin with boulder removal and SCAR plough campaign at the project site as of 8 March.
On behalf of Seaway Heavy Lifting (SHL), the engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contractor in charge of foundations and inter-array cables, Siem Offshore is scheduled to work on removing boulders and other debris from some of the array cable routes and various foundation locations from Wednesday until 20 March.
The company will prepare around 15% of the overall array cable routes by using its vessel Siem Ruby and Ecosse Subsea Systems’ 15m SCAR Plough. Meanwhile, the Siem N-Sea will deploy a Utility ROV (UTROV) grabber system to pinpoint and remove individual boulders from foundation locations.
The 588MW Beatrice offshore wind farm, situated off the north coast of Scotland, is being built by a tier 1 supply chain comprising Seaway Heavy Lifting, Subsea 7, Nexans and Siemens. It will comprise 84 Siemens SWT-7.0-154 turbines supported by pre-piled jacket substructures installed in water depths of up to 55m.
The GBP 2.6 billion project, scheduled to be fully operational by 2019, is owned by a joint venture partnership between SSE – Scottish & Southern Energy (40%), CIP – Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (35%) and Red Rock Power Ltd. (25%).