Clinton Marine Survey AB, on behalf of Nexans Norway AS, has started a survey for unexploded ordnance (UXO) along the Beatrice offshore wind farm export cable routes in the Moray Firth, Scotland, according to Brown and May Marine, the fisheries liaison for the survey.
The UXO survey commenced at the end of July and will continue over a planned minimum period of 4 weeks, weather permitting. The survey area includes the entire export cable route corridors.
At the Port Gordon nearshore area an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) will be used for the shallow survey operations.
The survey vessel M/V Northern Wind will complete the remainder of the offshore operations.
The routes will be altered to avoid the UXO within the corridor, or the UXO will be removed if no alternate route is available.
The 588MW Beatrice offshore wind farm is located in the Outer Moray Firth on the North Western point of the Smith Bank, approximately 13km off the Caithness coastline.
The development site will cover an approximate area of up to 130km and will consist of 84 Siemens 7MW turbines.
Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Ltd. (BOWL), a partnership formed between SSE, Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and SDIC Power, is the owner and developer of the wind farm.