Seaway Heavy Lifting (SHL), using its vessel Oleg Strashnov, installed the 77th jacket foundation at the Beatrice site on 20 June, according to some media posts from those involved in the project, following the project’s Notice to Mariners from 18 June that reported 76 jackets being in place.
The offshore wind farm will have 86 jackets in total, supporting 84 wind turbines and two Offshore Transmission Modules (OTMs).
Bladt shipped out its final foundation built for Beatrice earlier in June, thus wrapping up its contract under which it manufactured and delivered 30 four-legged jackets for the 588MW project. The rest of the jackets has been delivered by BiFab and Smulders.
SSE, one of the owners of the wind farm, said in January that it expected the Beatrice project to produce its first power in July.
The turbine installation has been set to start this summer and the news about the first erected turbine are anticipated to come immediately after all the foundations are in place.
Siemens Gamesa, which is responsibe for the supply of 84 of its 7MW wind turbines, will use Global Energy Group’s Nigg Energy Park fabrication yard on the Cromarty Firth for the project.
In May 2018, the turbine supplier hired Scottish company Windhoist Limited to carry out wind turbine pre-assembly for the offshore wind farm. The same month, North Highland Initiative posted a photo showing first Beatrice turbine towers lined up at the Nigg Energy Park site.
The wind farm, scheduled to become fully operational in 2019, is being developed by Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Limited (BOWL), a joint venture partnership between SSE, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Red Rock Power Ltd.
Offshore WIND Staff