Six Moray East Foundations In, Ten More Arrive in Nigg

Offshore Heavy Transport’s (OHT’s) vessel Hawk arrived at the Port of Nigg on 21 July, carrying nine jacket foundations for Moray East wind turbines and one for the project’s offshore substation.

The jackets will now be offloaded at Global Energy Group’s site in Nigg and will go through final preparations before Seajacks Scylla picks them up for installation at the Moray East project site.

According to the Notice of Operations issued by the Moray East project team, six jacket foundations have been installed so far.

The first jacket foundation was installed at the site, located some 22 kilometres off the Aberdeenshire coast, at the beginning of July.

The 950 MW offshore wind project will comprise 100 MHI Vestas 9.5 MW wind turbines and and three offshore substations, or Offshore Transformer Modules (OTMs).

In September 2019, DEME, the EPCI contractor for Moray East’s foundations, awarded OHT with a contract to transport 48 jacket foundations for the Moray East offshore wind farm from the United Arab Emirates to Scotland.

OHT Osprey brought the first eight foundations from UAE at the beginning of May, followed by OHT Albatross, which arrived at the Port of Nigg on 6 June with the second batch.

In the UAE, Lamprell has been manufacturing 45 wind turbine and three substation substructures at two of its yards. The remaining 55 foundations for the 100-turbine project are being delivered by Smulders.

Moray East, developed by ENGIE and EDP Renewables, is scheduled to be fully operational in 2022.