World’s deepest offshore wind turbine foundation installed offshore Scotland

DUBLIN — The world’s deepest wind turbine foundation has been installed at Seagreen, which SSE Renewables says will be Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm, located off the coast of Angus.

The foundation (i.e., jacket) was transported to the project site April 7 on a barge operated by main contractor Seaway 7 where it was met by the Saipem 7000 semisubmersible crane vessel, which is used to lift each of the 2,000-tonne turbine foundations into place.

The installation of the jacket means Seagreen has now topped its own record from October 2022, when a previous foundation was installed at a depth of 57.4 m (approximately 188 ft). The deepest foundation has been installed at a depth of 58.6 m.

The milestone also marks the installation of the 112^th jacket at the 114-wind turbine wind farm, which is a £3 billion ($3.7 billion) joint venture between SSE Renewables and TotalEnergies. The final wind turbine foundation is expected to be installed later this week.

Each foundation will support a Vestas V164-10 MW turbine. First power was achieved in August 2022 with the offshore wind farm expected to enter commercial operation later this year.

When complete, the 1.1-GW wind farm will be capable of generating about 5,000 GWh of renewable energy annually, which is enough clean, secure, sustainable electricity to power more than 1.6 million UK homes, SSE said.

04.12.2023