Sembmarine SLP, which has designed and built the offshore substation for the Dudgeon Offshore Wind Farm is preparing for the sail away of its jacket to the project construction site.
The 1,500-tonne jacket will be loaded onto a barge in Lowestoft tomorrow (20 April), and ready to be towed 100km up the coast to the site in early May.
The four-deck topside – to be lifted onto the jacket – is currently being completed at the yard, ready for its weigh and load out in July and sail away in August.
The jacket structure will be sunk into the seabed using suction bucket technology for the first time on an offshore substation in the UK. Four suction buckets, weighing approx. 110 tonnes each, were welded on to the legs of the jacket in the company’s yard at Hamilton Dock.
Sembmarine SLP was contracted to work with Siemens Transmission and Distribution Ltd (STDL) to build the offshore substation for wind farm owners Statoil, Statkraft and Masdar.
The project has taken 850,000 work hours since its award in 2014 with the company’s workforce swelling to 240.
The yellow jacket – measuring 48m from its cable deck to the bottom of its suction buckets – has been visible from the town’s bridge and South Pier as it has taken shape.
Once the topside is installed, the offshore substation will weigh approximately 1,700 tonnes. It will house all systems needed for the handling and export of power from the 402MW wind farm to the onshore substation at Necton, Norfolk and connects to Dudgeon’s 67 turbines by 12 inter-array cables. Two export cables will take the power to Necton.
A celebration of the jacket’s completion and delivery on time will be held at OrbisEnergy in Lowestoft on Friday, 22 April. The event is being organised for Sembmarine SLP by the East of England Energy Group (EEEGR).