Siem Offshore Contractors’ accommodation and personnel transfer vessel Siem Moxie has begun work on Statoil’s Hywind Scotland, the world’s first commercial floating wind farm.
The walk-to-work installation support vessel started supporting commissioning works on the Hywind Scotland floating wind farm off Aberdeenshire on 24 August. The project is expected to be fully commissioned by October 2017.
“The utilisation of the ISV Siem Moxie represents the first serial access using a vessel in-built heave compensated gangway to a dynamically moving floating wind farm foundation,” Regis Rougier , managing director of Siem Offshore Contractors, said.
”The benefits are expected to include an increase in the access weather window for operational maintenance planning as well as the construction commissioning versus more traditional smaller crafts such as crew transfer vessels. We firmly believe that the use of the more capable and weather resilient walk-to-work vessels such as the ISV Siem Moxie will directly contribute to a reduction in LCOE in the long term.”
Hywind Scotland consists of five 6MW Siemens Gamesa wind turbine generators, installed at Buchan Deep off the coast of Scotland, and mounted on SPAR-buoy floating foundations.
The floating wind farm is owned by Statoil (75%) and Masdar (25%).