Installation of Inch Cape Monopile TPs About to Start, First Jacket Foundations Arrive in Scotland

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Seaway7 is scheduled to start installing monopile transition pieces (TPs) at the Inch Cape offshore wind farm site in Scotland this month. At the beginning of March, the first jacket foundations for the project, which will comprise a combination of monopile and jacket foundations, arrived in the Port of Leith.

Heavy-lift vessel Seaway Alfa Lift is expected to arrive at the Inch Cape site on or around 17 March, carrying the first batch of transition pieces for the project’s monopile wind turbine foundations from the Port of Leith. The installation work will continue for several months, according to a recent Notice to Mariners issued by the project.

The 1.1 GW offshore wind farm, owned by a joint venture between Red Rock Power and ESB, will comprise 72 Vestas V236-15.0 MW turbines , of which 54 will be installed on monopile foundations and 18 on three-legged jacket foundations. The two designs allow for the differing water depths, which range from 34 to 64 metres across the 150 square kilometre offshore site, according to the developer.

CNOOD-Wenchong Heavy Industries (CWHI) was contracted to manufacture 32 monopiles and 30 TPs, with the remaining monopiles manufactured by Dajin Offshore, while the remaining TPs are being produced by COOEC Fluor Heavy Industries (CFHI), which is also in charge of delivering the jacket foundations.

On 4 March, the Inch Cape joint venture said the first three of Inch Cape’s 18 jacket foundations arrived in the Port of Leith on board the heavy transport vessel Hua Yang Long .