After sending off the first tower sections for the Hywind Tampen wind turbines from its Bilbao factory at the beginning of March, Haizea Wind Group is nearing completion of its part of the project with eight towers manufactured so far.
The 8-metre-diameter towers, the world’s largest in this respect, will support the eleven Siemens Gamesa 8 MW wind turbines at the Norwegian floating wind farm, the first one in the world to power oil and gas platforms.
Currently, last four towers in Haizea’s facility in the Port of Bilbao are awaiting assembly and painting before being ready for the Hywind Tampen assembly site in Gulen in western Norway.
The company will deliver the towers in a total of six shipments.
Nacelles for the first Siemens Gamesa units arrived at the assembly site at the beginning of March and the first SPAR-type floating foundations manufactured by Aker Solutions set sail to Gulen earlier this month.
The first floating wind turbine has been already assembled , according to a social media post shared a few days ago by Equinor’s Manager of Operations for Hywind Tampen, Ole Arild Larsen.
Equinor plans to start towing the fully assembled wind turbines in early Summer and complete the offshore work by the end of the year .
Once installed 140 kilometres off the Norwegian coast in water depths of between 260 and 300 metres, the wind turbines will power the Snorre and Gullfaks offshore oil and gas platforms off Norway.
The 88 MW floating wind farm is expected to cover about 35 per cent of the annual power needs on the five platforms Snorre A and B and Gullfaks A, B and C in the Norwegian North Sea and to reduce emissions from the Gullfaks and Snorre fields by more than 200,000 tonnes per year.
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