Lithuania’s Gridin’s Group and Finnish Levator Oy have been working on primary steel structures for 30 transition pieces (TPs) to be installed at the 588MW Beatrice offshore wind farm in the Scottish North Sea.
The two companies were hired to manufacture the steel components by Denmark’s Bladt Industries last autumn. The three companies had previously collaborated on a similar project for the Wikinger offshore wind farm.
The components are being produced in Levator Oy’s production facilities in Hanko.
”The project will be managed by a joint management team consisting of 25 leading specialists from both companies, Gridin‘s Group and Levator Oy, applying the experience gained a year ago while performing works at the Wikinger project. Such management model, referred to as GRILEV, enabled us to solve all technical and other important issues related to production. The structures, approximately 150 tons each, are expected to be delivered in the third quarter of 2017,” said Aleksandr Shamov, the production manager of this project and co-owner of the Gridin’s Group.
The Beatrice offshore wind farm will be located 13.5 kilometers off the coast in the Outer Moray Firth. The wind farm will feature 84 Siemens 7MW turbines installed on jacket foundations.
The jacket foundations will have a height of up to 71 metres and will weigh up to 830 tonnes, with a footprint of 24 x 24 metres. They will be installed in water depths of up to 47 metres.
Seaway Heavy Lifting ordered the 30 jacket foundations from Bladt in June 2016.
“This agreement is very important to us, as it reflects the reliability and strengths of our company in one of the largest markets of the steel structure production in Europe. Nearly a year ago we manufactured primary steel structures for the Wikinger Wind Farm. Taking part in building the new Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm is a credible acknowledgement of our work quality, which is especially important in this sector, which is one of the largest industrial sectors, and has a great potential for the next 10 years, ” said Marius Medzius , one of the co-owners of the Gridin’s Group.
The GBP 2.6 billion Beatrice project is being developed by Beatrice Offshore Wind Farm Limited (BOWL), a joint venture partnership between SSE (40%), Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (35%) and Red Rock Power Ltd. (25%).
The wind farm is expected to become fully operational in 2019.