Offshore Structures Britain (OSB) has installed the first external platform on one of the transition pieces being built for the Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm in the UK part of North Sea.
In January, Ørsted signed a contract with Bladt for the construction of 96 transition pieces (TPs) for the wind farm, with 56 to be constructed at OSB’s facility in Haverton Hill near Billingham, Teesside, and the remaining 40 at the Bladt Aalborg facility in Denmark.
Steelwind is in charge of manufacturing the additional 20 TPs, while EEW Special Pipe Constructions GmbH (EEW SPC) will manufacture all the monopile foundations.
Royal Boskalis Westminister won a contract for the transport and installation of a part of the foundations, but did not reveal exactly how many out of the 174 foundations the agreement covers.
The installation of foundations and inter-array cables is currently scheduled to begin in early 2018.
The 1.2GW wind farm, located off Grimsby, will comprise 174 Siemens 7MW wind turbines. Once fully operational in 2020, it will be the largest offshore wind farm in the world.
Ørsted, former DONG Energy, is the sole owner of Hornsea Project One, and holds the project rights to the Hornsea Project Two and Three, which have the potential of further 3GW offshore wind power capacity in total.