The Fugro Quest vessel, operated by Fugro, is en route to the northeast coast of England to begin geotechnical survey work on the site of the proposed Dogger Bank South (DBS) West, one of two proposed DBS offshore wind farms.
Fugro Quest , launched in 2022, left Falmouth on 23 July 2024 to initiate geotechnical assessments at the DBS West offshore wind farm site, located over 100 kilometers off the northeastern coast of England.
Over the course of the coming months, Fugro’s crew will be collecting geo-data to support RWE and Masdar with the site design and development for up to 100 turbines, said the Dutch company.
In April, Fugro secured a contract to conduct geotechnical seabed surveys at the UK’s DBS offshore wind project sites. The DBS project will be split across two sites, DBS East and DBS West, each with a capacity of 1.5 GW and spanning 500 square kilometers.
Fugro plans to utilize three vessels, namely Fugro Quest, Fugro Voyager, and Normand Mermaid, to assess the seabed conditions at the locations of each proposed turbine and platform foundation, as well as the related seabed infrastructure.
This is not the first time Fugro will carry out surveys at DBS sites. In 2022, the company performed surveys at the array sites and export cable routes of RWE and Masdar’s DBS East and DBS West.
Recently, the UK Planning Inspectorate accepted into the examination phase the Development Consent Order (DCO) application for the DBS Offshore Wind Farms. The acceptance of the DCO application moves the projects into the pre-examination phase, which will become subject to a public examination later in 2024.
Together, Dogger Bank South will have up to 200 turbines with a combined estimated capacity of 3 GW.