Offshore staff
LUXEMBOURG – Jan De Nul Group has started installation activities for Taiwan Power Co.’s Changhua offshore wind farm.
The first 12 pin piles have been installed and the first export cable has been connected to shore near Fangyuan in Changhua County, on the west coast of Taiwan.
The Changhua wind farm will consist of 21 offshore wind turbines on pre-piled jackets, each anchored to the seabed by four steel pin piles. In a first phase, Jan De Nul Group will install 44 pin piles for 11 jackets, of which 12 are installed. Forty more pin piles will be shipped from the fabrication yard in South Korea to Taiwan in the coming weeks.
For this foundation installation campaign, the company chartered Heerema Marine Contractors’ offshore installation vessel Aegir.
Peter De Pooter, Manager Renewables at Jan De Nul Group, said: “The COVID-19 outbreak has a severe impact on our activities. However, we have been able to take the first hurdles caused by this pandemic. It is a relief that we now have been able to start the actual installation works.”
Simultaneously, Jan De Nul’s cable-laying vessel Willem de Vlamingh started installing the submarine export cables. The first of four cables was pulled to the onshore junction box.
Due to the presence of a nearshore oyster farm and a shipping lane in the trajectory of the subsea cables, they must be buried 21 m (69 ft) below the seabed. Therefore, the company drilled four 1 km-long pipes by horizontal directional drilling from offshore to the onshore junction box.
The landfall works were executed by two of the company’s Starfishes, trenching excavators, and with the support of Taiwan-based Hung Hua Construction.
TPC awarded the ‘offshore windfarm Phase 1 project – demonstration’ contract to the Jan De Nul-Hitachi consortium on Feb 13, 2018.
Jan De Nul Group is responsible for the design, fabrication, and installation of the foundations, the installation of the wind turbines, the supply and installation of the cables off- and onshore as well as upgrading an electrical substation.
Hitachi Ltd. is in charge of manufacturing, assembly and other works related to the offshore wind turbines with downwind rotor. The foundations and wind turbines are designed to withstand cyclonic waves and winds, and earthquake loads.
The consortium is responsible over five years for the operation and maintenance of the offshore wind farm.
07/14/2020
