More than Half of Kaskasi Foundations Now In

Seaway 7 has installed all of the monopile foundations within its scope of work for the Kaskasi offshore wind farm and DEME Offshore just announced that its part of the project is progressing and that 22 monopiles are now installed at the 38-turbine offshore wind farm.

“Seaway Strashnov completed the monopile installation on the Kaskasi project in the German Bight in the first quarter. This was the first commercial use of a new method and equipment for installing monopiles in Dynamic Positioning mode from the Seaway Strashnov, a key milestone for Seaway 7 and an industry first”, Seaway 7 stated in an update on the results for the first quarter of 2022.

Seaway 7 installed the first monopile at the Kaskasi offshore wind farm site in Germany in early March, marking the first time a monopile was installed using dynamic positioning on a commercial project, a method Seaway 7 was developing over the past few years.

As all seven monopiles Seaway 7 was responsible for are now installed, CAPE Holland also announced that its Vibro Lifting Tool, the CAPE VLT-640 Triple, completed its work at the Kaskasi offshore wind farm under a contract signed with the offshore construction company in 2020.

“For the first time ever, flanged monopiles have been upended, lifted and vibrated with CAPE Holland’s patent pending flange clamping system. After a short learning curve, Seaway 7 used the CAPE VLT to drive a new type of monopiles with Self Expanding Pile Shoe (SEPS). Although the monopiles where not vibrated to end depth, new insights and data have been collected via a newly developed monitoring, logging and survey system”, CAPE Holland said.

The use of the new method and tool was announced in 2020 after Seaway 7 was awarded the contract for the Kaskasi project.

As for DEME, the company so far installed 15 foundations at the project site offshore Germany.

DEME is in charge of installing the majority of the 39 monopiles, 38 for the wind turbines and one for the now installed substation, as well as all the transition pieces, turbines and inter-array cables.

“RWE had contacted DEME Offshore as additional support for the foundation installation works”, the company said in a press release on 28 April. “DEME Offshore immediately took action when RWE reached out and mobilised its DP2 offshore installation vessel ‘Neptune’ in combination with the ‘Blue Tern’ from Fred Olsen for the monopile installation. DEME Offshore is managing these tandem transport and installation operations and is providing all the seafastening, handling and hammering equipment”.

The company also said its vessel Sea Challenger has been lined up for installing the transition pieces and the subsequent wind turbine installation, the latter under a direct charter with Siemens Gamesa. 

Installation of the wind turbines is scheduled to start this Summer.

DEME will also lay and bury all 42 inter-array cables using its cable installation vessel Living Stone.

The 342 MW Kaskasi offshore wind farm, also known as Kaskasi II, is located in the German North Sea, 35 kilometres north of the island of Heligoland.

The wind farm will comprise 38 Siemens Gamesa wind turbines, each with an output of up to 9 MW, which are expected to be put into operation by the end of this year.

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