Acta Marine has informed that its new walk-to-work vessel Acta Auriga commenced work at BARD Offshore 1 wind farm in Germany on 9 May.
Acta Auriga has been deployed on the 400MW offshore wind farm under a two-year charter deal with the project’s operator Ocean Breeze Energy, signed in January 2018.
Operating out of Emden, the vessel is providing logistical support for maintenance activities the service company REETEC is in charge of on the 80-turbine offshore wind farm.
“The vessel, which was specially developed for use in offshore wind farms, is expected to increase the productivity of offshore personnel by around 25 percent, because it will enable our teams to operate in a much more flexible manner with even shorter waiting times than before,” said Jean Huby , Managing Director for Technology at OBE. “The new vessel will thus contribute to ensuring and further increasing the excellent technical availability rate of our wind turbines, which currently stands at around 95 percent.”
Ocean Breeze Energy stated that since 2015 it had mainly been using support vessels for the maintenance work at BARD Offshore 1 as the concept guarantees safe deployment of service technicians on the wind turbines in heavy waves, which is particularly important in the often challenging weather conditions at the offshore wind farm’s site.
The BARD Offshore 1 wind farm is located in the German Bight, some 100km off the German coast. According to Acta Marine, the vessel’s walk-to-work gangway system and 3D compensated crane are able to cope with the challenging weather and sea conditions that occur in the German Bight.
The vessel, delivered on 28 March, can accommodate up to 120 persons and provides cargo areas of 1,000 square meters, indoors and outdoors, with a container skidding system and space for up to 24 containers. All cargo handling is centralized, with stepless transfer to the cargo and personnel lift, and likewise over to the wind turbines.