Ecosse Subsea to Prepare Hornsea One Seabed for Export Cable

Tideway, a subsidiary of DEME, has awarded Ecosse Subsea Systems (ESS) a seabed clearance contract for Hornsea Project One export cables. ESS will deploy its SCAR2 Seabed System along a 25-metre corridor from an anchor handling vessel. 

Mobilising from Sunderland, ESS will also complete survey and boulder grabbing workscopes from a second vessel. The project is expected to last 90 days and is the second largest project awarded to Banchory-based ESS to date, the company said.

Tideway won a Design and Build cable installation contract by DONG Energy for the Hornsea Project One in June 2016. VBMS, a subsidiary of Royal Boskalis Westminster, will assist Tideway with the installation of three nearshore and shallow water sections of export cables for the 1.2GW offshore wind farm.

Once operational in 2020, Hornsea Project One will become the largest offshore wind farm in the world, consisting of up to 174 turbines. The Siemens 7MW turbines will be located 120km off the Yorkshire coast, covering an area of approximately 407km2.

For ESS, this marks another job at a DONG Energy project, following similar projects on the Race Bank Wind Farm off the Norfolk coast in June 2016 and Westermost Rough Wind Farm east of Hull in 2014.