Sea Installer En Route to Vineyard Wind 1 Site to Install First GE Haliade-X 13 MW Turbines

August 10, 2023, by Adrijana Buljan

DEME’s jack-up installation vessel Sea Installer is on its way to the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind farm site, where the vessel will soon install what will be the first wind turbines offshore the US state of Massachusetts.

The vessel, which first called the port of Halifax in Canada at the beginning of this month, arrived in the port of Salem in Massachusetts earlier this week and, according to AIS data available online, set sail towards the offshore construction site yesterday evening (9 August).

While Sea Installer was docked in Salem, DEME hosted Massachusetts and City of Salem officials, as well as Vineyard Wind CEO, President of the Massachusetts Building Trades and VP Operations, and Crowley Wind Services’ VP Operations on board the newly upgraded vessel.

The installation of GE Haliade-X 13 MW wind turbines offshore Massachusetts is the first work Sea Installer will perform after its recent upgrade that saw the vessel being fitted with a new, 1,600-tonne crane.

This is also the first time DEME is carrying out this kind of work in the US.

The company’s installation vessel Orion has already been deployed at the Vineyard Wind 1 site for a few months now, with the vessel installing the project’s monopile foundations. The same vessel was used to install the project’s offshore substation last month.

“Remarkable teamwork between DEME and the highly skilled union workers from the Massachusetts Building Trades currently working on board ‘Orion’ is ensuring the successful installation of the foundations. We are looking forward to the same cooperative spirit during the turbine installation campaign”, DEME said via social media, in an update about the Sea Installer jack-up arriving in Salem.

The first shipment of tower sections for GE’s Haliade-X 13 MW turbines arrived at the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal in Massachusetts in May, followed by the first wind turbine blades arriving in June.

The Vineyard Wind joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP) is using both the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal and the Salem port, with the latter being developed by Crowley into the second major offshore wind port terminal in Massachusetts.

The Salem Harbor Wind Terminal is a public-private partnership between Crowley and the city of Salem, with Avangrid serving as the port’s anchor tenant, primarily for its Commonwealth Wind and Park City Wind projects.

The Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind farm, being built 24 kilometres off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, is the first commercial-scale offshore wind farm to be approved for construction in the US.

With the first of the total of 62 wind turbines to be erected soon, Vineyard Wind 1 is expected to produce first power by mid-October.

Once fully operational next year, the 806 MW offshore wind farm will provide enough electricity for more than 400,000 homes and businesses in Massachusetts and reduce carbon emissions by more than 1.6 million tonnes per year.