DONG Energy has chosen the Aberdeen-based Gulf Marine Services UK to provide offshore accommodation for workers on the 1.2GW Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm.
Hornsea Project One will be located 120 kilometres off the Yorkshire Coast, so when work begins offshore in 2018, the team will stay out at sea rather than make the journey back and forth each day, DONG said.
Two accommodation jack-up vessels will sleep up to 150 technicians in total. They will provide access via a static gangway to the three offshore substations and reactive compensation station.
As well as providing a place for those commissioning the substations to stay, one of the vessels will be fitted with a boat landing system, enabling transfers to crew transfer vessels, even when jacked up and without interference to operations on the substation.
This will create an offshore hub, allowing technicians working on other areas of the wind farm, such as the wind turbines, to stay on the same vessel.
“Hornsea Project One will become the world’s biggest wind farm by a long way, so we are having to innovate in all areas as we scale up our expertise from previous projects. It’s also the furthest wind farm from shore that we’ve built, presenting challenges that are new to this industry,” Duncan Clark, Programme Director at DONG Energy, said.
The two Self Elevating Support Vessels (SESVs) being supplied by GMS are less than five years old. Each SESV has the advantage of four legs rather than the usual three seen on traditional liftboats, offering a very stable platform in harsh weather conditions, DONG said.
The vessels are also self-propelled and dynamically positioned, which means they do not require the assistance of tugs or similar support vessels. They have a large deck space, crane capacity and accommodation facilities that can be adapted to the requirements of the clients.
“The offshore hub will be an integral part of the logistic set up for Hornsea Project One,” Duncan Anderson, CEO Gulf Marine Services Ltd, said.
“On this project, we’re working with DONG Energy to adapt our vessels to better serve the offshore wind industry. This will bring benefit to both parties and give us an advantage for future offshore projects. By developing new business streams in renewable energy we’ve been remained a leader in this competitive market.”