DEME Offshore’s jack-up vessel Sea Installer has installed the four piles for the jacket foundation that will support the offshore substation (OSS) of the Fécamp wind farm in French waters.
The jacket is scheduled to be installed this Summer.
For the piling work, some five vessels were mobilised, according to Eolien Maritime France (EMF), including TSM Penzer and Roxane Z, from the French shipowners TSM and Jifmar. The two vessels were involved in the work at various times during the campaign to support the activities of the Sea Installer as well as to monitor the noise level and ensure the absence of marine mammals nearby.
The OSS jacket foundation is being manufactured by Rosetti Marino, which cut the first steel for the jacket at the beginning of last year, while Chantiers de l’Atlantique kicked off the construction of the topside in September 2020.
In April last year, Sea Installer installed the four foundation piles for the Saint-Nazaire offshore wind farm’s substation in record time, and DEME said the lessons learnt from this achievement would be implemented for the installation of the pile foundations for the Fécamp and Courseulles offshore substations.
Last month, DEME shared an update saying the vessel was getting ready to carry out works for the Fécamp offshore wind farm in France.
The 71 wind turbine foundations at the 500 MW French offshore wind farm are of gravity-based type and are being delivered by a consortium of Bouygues Construction, Saipem, and Boskalis. These will be installed by Saipem 7000 , which is currently deployed on the Seagreen offshore wind farm in Scotland.
The 500 MW Fécamp offshore wind farm, being built by EDF Renouvelables, EIH Sarl (a subsidiary of Enbridge) and wpd, will consist of 71 Siemens Gamesa SWT-7.0-154 wind turbines installed more than 13 kilometres off the Normandy coast.
Offshore construction is scheduled to be completed and the wind farm fully commissioned by the end of 2023.