EGS Survey to Start Work at Fred. Olsen Seawind and Vattenfall’s ScotWind Site

NOTE: The article was updated on 28 March with information about the deployment of a floating LiDAR at the Muir Mhòr offshore site.

The UK-headquartered company EGS Survey will carry out a survey campaign at the Muir Mhòr floating wind project site in Scotland, being developed by Fred. Olsen Seawind and Vattenfall.

Starting next month, EGS Survey will be performing preliminary geophysical and environmental surveys using the vessel EGS Ventus, with the work to be conducted from Peterhead Port and expected to be completed in July this year, according to a recently issued Notice to Mariners.

According to a press release from the project partners from January, ESG Survey has signed a multi-million-pound contract for the work which will support site characterisation.

The company will perform a survey of a wind farm area equating to approximately 200 square kilometres, in addition to an offshore export cable corridor area of 100 square kilometres once the point of landfall has been identified.

The data collected through EGS’s surveys will inform the project’s geotechnical approach and support an accelerated timetable for the consent applications, the Muir Mhòr partners said.

Meanwhile, Vattenfall and Fred. Olsen Seawind are now also collecting wind resource and oceanographic and meteorological data for the project, after recently deploying a floating LiDAR.

Vattenfall said earlier this month that the deployment of a floating LiDAR system and metocean instrumentation package at the Muir Mhòr site was completed.

The metocean campaign will run for a minimum period of twelve months to inform the project’s engineering works, with instrumentation distributed across two separate mooring systems.

The large 14-tonne surface buoy contains two ZX300m LiDAR systems that measure winds at various heights and will help lower uncertainties in the yield assessment and constrain hydrodynamic and wave modelling, Vattenfall sid.

Furthermore, a Nortek Signature series acoustic doppler current profiler and a Datawell wave unit are acquiring information on the surface wave and current conditions that will help lower the risks and uncertainties in the future foundation design. On the seabed, there is another Nortek current profiler designed to further support the current and wave data being acquired at the surface, according to the offshore wind developer.

“Pulling all these datasets together allows Muir Mhòr to better understand the combined effect of winds, waves and currents, the subsequent analysis of which is a critical input into the design of foundations, mooring systems and cables as well as planning and operational activities for various project phases”, Vattenfall stated.

The latest contract for the project, signed with EGS International, comes after last year’s announcement that the developers had already awarded over GBP 3 million in development contracts with Scottish and UK-based suppliers. 

Fred. Olsen Seawind and Vattenfall won the rights to develop the offshore wind farm site, located 67 kilometres off the Scottish east coast, in the ScotWind seabed leasing round last year.

The two partners plan for the Muir Mhòr (initially named Mara Mhòr) floating wind farm to have a capacity of up to 798 MW.

Subject to planning and grid infrastructure approvals, the floating wind farm is on schedule to be put into operation in 2030.

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