Offshore staff
LEIDEN, the Netherlands — Heerema Marine Contractors has installed the first of two offshore substations for the Neart na Gaoithe (NnG) wind farm, 15 km offshore Fife, eastern Scotland.
This allows NnG to be fully connected to the National Grid ahead of the project’s 54 wind turbines being installed in 2023. Saipem, the foundations EPCI contractor, brought in Heerema's Sleipnir to place the 1,100-metric-ton topside onto one of the two foundation jackets.
Both foundation jackets were designed by Saipem’s team in London and constructed at the company’s fabrication yard on Karimun Island, Indonesia.
Last year the Saipem 7000 and Saipem 3000 vessels prepared the "rock socket" seabed supports for the jackets in a water depth close to 50 m to anchor the offshore substation to the seabed.
Once installed, the power generated by the turbines will be exported via NnG’s two offshore substations to its onshore substation and onward into the National Grid’s entry point at Crystal Rig in the Lammermuir Hills, East Lothian. The first turbines should be operational in mid-2023, with the entire wind farm due to be completed in 2024. NnG, jointly owned by EDF Renewables and ESB, will have a capacity of about 450 MW.
06.09.2022
