Jan De Nul to Deploy Les Alizés for Inch Cape Monopile Installation

February 27, 2025, by Adrijana Buljan

Jan De Nul will deploy its heavy-lift vessel Les Alizés for the monopile installation at the Inch Cape offshore wind farm in Scotland.

Heavy-lift vessel Les Alizés; Photo: Jan De Nul

The company was announced as one of the project suppliers at the beginning of this year as ESB and Red Rock Renewables reached financial close on the 1,080 MW Inch Cape project.

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Inch Cape will comprise 72 Vestas V236-15.0 MW turbines installed on a mix of monopile and jacket foundations. The monopiles and their transition pieces will be delivered by Dajin Offshore Heavy Industry and CNOOD-Wenchong Heavy Industries (CWHI). While Jan De Nul has been contracted for the installation of the monopile foundations, jackets at the Inch Cape project site will be installed by Seaway7.

Engineering and project preparation for the transport and installation of the monopile foundations is already underway, according to Jan De Nul. The installation is expected to start in late 2025.

The monopiles, up to 110 metres long and weighing up to 2,500 tonnes, will be loaded at a newly built quayside at the entrance to the Port of Leith in Edinburgh, Scotland.

For Jan De Nul’s Les Alizés, delivered in January 2023, Inch Cape marks the third consecutive assignment.

In 2024, the heavy-lift vessel finished its first project after installing 107 monopile foundations on German offshore wind farms Gode Wind 3 and Borkum Riffgrund 3.

This spring, Les Alizés will be deployed to install 72 monopiles on RWE’s Thor offshore wind farm in Denmark under a long-term charter with RWE which, according to Jan De Nul, has taken steps to ensure the vessel could be made available to other developers during downtime between its own projects.

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“As one of the world’s leading offshore wind developers and operators, we are aware that our long-term charter vessels from Jan De Nul may not always be fully utilised on our projects. We are highly sensitive to the pressures on the global offshore industry, created by the limited availability of these highly capable construction vessels”, said Jon Darling, Head of Construction Delivery at RWE.

“We are pleased to make the vessel available for this unique and highly collaborative initiative, supporting Inch Cape’s continued drive to deliver new UK energy infrastructure and to evolve towards net zero.”