Seaway Heavy Lifting’s vessel, Stanislav Yudin, has successfully completed a record run of foundation installation works at Gwynt y Mor Offshore Wind Farm.
The vessel, operating over eight miles off the North Wales coast, installed 80 monopiles and 32 transition pieces in 77 days, ensuring all 160 wind turbine locations have a foundation in place.The first of the final 80 monopiles was installed on 25 th May with the last one being piled on 10 th August. Since then the Stanislav Yudin has installed another 29 transition pieces, completing its third scope of work on the project. Last year, the vessel installed both offshore substations and the first 80 monopiles at Gwynt y Mor.
RWE npower renewables’ Gwynt y Mor Project director Toby Edmonds said: “ The Stanislav Yudin working with the Gwynt y Mor construction team achieved an excellent installation record completing on average more than one location every day.
“This was carried out with no lost time incidents. Safety was and remains our main priority.
“The good weather during the summer months inevitably assisted the construction works, keeping Gwynt y Mor on schedule to be completed in 2014.”
To ensure the Stanislav Yudin had a constant supply of monopiles and transition pieces, foundation components were transported by barge from the Gwynt y Mor Base Harbour Port Facility at Birkenhead for immediate installation offshore. The base operated on a 24/7 basis completing a total of 54 barge deliveries over the 77 day installation period.
Gert Pellinkoft, Project Management Director of Seaway Heavy Lifting said the company was pleased to contribute to the success of the Gwynt y Mor Offshore Wind Farm project. He said: “Thanks to an outstanding effort of all parties involved, the Stanislav Yudin and her crew were able to perform an excellent job”.
Gwynt y Mor is a €2billion offshore wind farm on schedule to become fully operational in 2014, when it will be capable of generating enough energy from renewable sources to power the equivalent of approximately 400,000 homes – around a third of the total number of homes in all of Wales. The construction of Gwynt y Mor to date, has enabled the injection of over £350million into the UK supply chain, been responsible for creating and securing employment for over 2,500 people in the UK, and expects to sustain over 110 jobs long term, from a new multi-million pound operations and maintenance base, which will be built in North Wales.
At the same time, North Wales Communities have been consulted on how to most usefully invest over £19million in community funding over the wind farm’s w orking lifetime – a topic crucial to Welsh and UK government in the delivery of energy policy. This is in addition to the £690,000 Tourism Fund.
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Press release, October 30, 2013; Image: shl