Offshore maintenance contractors Offshore & Wind Assistance (OWA) and EWE Offshore Service & Solutions GmbH (EWE-OSS) have been hired to provide operation and maintenance services to the Gemini offshore wind farm in the Dutch North Sea.
The 600MW Gemini offshore wind park, located 85 km north of the Dutch coast, is being built on two locations close to each other, ‘Buitengaats’ and ‘ZeeEnergie’.
Offshore Wind & Assistance (OWA), the offshore maintenance specialist of GeoSea (DEME Group), will operate and maintain the Balance of Plant for both wind farms. Next to providing marine logistics, the scope of works includes the maintenance of all foundations above and below water, maintenance of the cable and scour protection.
EWE Offshore Service & Solutions GmbH (EWE-OSS) will be in charge of operating, maintaining and monitoring two transformer stations at sea and one transformer station in Eemshaven. It will also be responsible for the network management of the two 220 kV export cables that will transport the electricity to land and a 380 kV stretch of cable on land that will connect the electricity to the transmission network. EWE OSS will be supported with this contract by EWE NETZ and BTC – two other companies in the EWE Group.
“OWA has quite some experience in offshore maintenance activities on the North Sea and can count on the longstanding expertise of parent company GeoSea and other offshore companies within the DEME Group. It allows us to export our maintenance know-how on a long-term basis on the entire European energy market,” confirms Stijn Delauré, General Manager Offshore & Wind Assistance NV .
“We are very pleased that the operators of this fascinating project have placed their confidence in us,” says Ines Kolmsee, Chief Technical Officer of EWE AG . “It is also a positive affirmation of our strategy not just to implement our own projects but also to operate as a service provider in the offshore sector.”
The contract covers a period of 5 years, starting in 2016.
Image: DEME