Offshore staff
ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands — Van Oord has installed all 62 jacket foundations for the Saint-Brieuc wind farm, 16.3 km offshore Britanny, northwest France.
The 496-MW development, in the Bay of Saint-Brieuc, is the country’s first to feature jacket foundations, the company said.
Iberdrola subsidiary Ailes Marines contracted Van Oord to transport and install the foundations for the wind turbines, each with three pin piles, and the four foundation pin piles for the offshore substation (190 pin piles in total).
Due to the hard and rocky seabed and environmental conditions, the company adapted its installation vessel Aeolus to include a project-specific equipment spread that was engineered and constructed on the vessel.
To ensure Aeolus could be safely jacked above sea level, the feet of the jacking system were modified using a flex-pin construction, and the company employed a specially engineered drilling method to install the foundations, co-developed with Bauer Spezial Tiefbau.
A newly designed drilling template served as a positioning and casing drilling tool for placement of the pin piles.
10.16.2023
