The installation of wind turbine foundations at Ørsted’s Hornsea 3 offshore wind farm in the UK is scheduled to start in April, with Cadeler’s vessels Wind Ally and Wind Orca , and the service operation vessel (SOV) Esvagt Froude set to mobilise for the work from Dutch and UK ports.
Wind Ally will mobilise for the installation of XXL monopiles from Rotterdam, the Netherlands, with the work planned to commence from 12 April. Wind Orca , which will be used for secondary structure installation works, will mobilise from the Port of Tyne in England and is expected to start operations at the project site on 19 April, according to a recent Notice to Mariners issued by the project.
The foundation commissioning works will be supported by the SOV Esvagt Froude , mobilising from the Port of Hull in England, with work expected to commence on 24 April.
During the installation of the Hornsea 3 wind turbine foundations, noise monitoring systems will be deployed by the contractor Seiche, utilising the vessel BB Ocean .
The first batch of six monopiles, of a total of 197 that Hornsea 3 will comprise, recently arrived at the Steel River Quay in the Teesside Freeport from Haizea Wind Group’s facility in Bilbao, Spain.
Ørsted signed contracts for Hornsea 3 monopiles in 2022 with SeAH Wind and Haizea Wind Group. However, the developer and SeAH agreed to mutually terminate the contract because the company faced ongoing production challenges at its new Teesside facility, with Ørsted subsequently reallocating SeAH’s scope to other supplier(s).
At the beginning of March, Dajin Heavy Industry announced that it had shipped the first Hornsea 3 monopiles from China to the UK onboard its new heavy-cargo deck carrier, King One .
Hornsea 3 is Ørsted’s third gigawatt-scale project in the North Sea’s Hornsea zone. The offshore wind farm will feature 197 Siemens Gamesa’s 14 MW turbines, installed approximately 160 kilometres off the Yorkshire coast.
The 2.9 GW Hornsea 3, which Ørsted says is the largest single offshore wind farm in the world, is expected to be operational in 2027.