RWE Innogy Contracts Daewoo to Build Specialist Ship for Construction of Offshore Wind Farms
07 December 2009
RWE Innogy has awarded Korean shipyard Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co., Ltd, (DSME) a contract to build a specialist ship for the construction of offshore wind farms. The contract also includes the option for two further identical construction ships. The value of the contract for each ship is around €100 million (US$149 million). The first ship should be completed in 2011.
| Rendering of the offshore wind farm ship. Click to enlarge. |
The ships ordered by RWE Innogy are the first of their type. They are able to transport and install the largest available offshore wind turbines, including foundations. With a length of 109 meters and a width of 40 meters, the ships can simultaneously transport and install up to four turbines in the multi-megawatt class. Featuring satellite control, these ships can be fixed with centimeter-precision for construction work at sea and operate in water depths of more than 40 meters.
The construction ships of this special design are ideally suited to the construction of marine wind power plants. Unlike the vessels which were previously used, they are able to successfully install the largest wind turbines currently available in the 5 and 6 megawatt class even under the harsh conditions which are often encountered offshore.
—Prof. Martin Skiba, Head of Offshore Wind at RWE Innogy
| Rendering of the ship positioned, with turbines aboard. Click to enlarge. |
The ship capacities commissioned in the course of a worldwide invitation for tender are intended for use in the construction of the offshore wind farms planned by RWE Innogy. The company currently has plans for two wind farms in the German part of the North Sea: North Sea East“(295 megawatt) and Innogy North Sea 1 (960 megawatt). Off the Welsh coast, RWE Innogy is planning construction of an offshore wind farm to be called Gwynt y Môr (576 megawatt).
The company recently commissioned the Rhyl Flats wind farm (90 megawatt) in Liverpool Bay off the Welsh coast. The company has already been operating the North Hoyle offshore wind park (60 MW) there since 2004. RWE Innogy also has a 50% share in the Greater Gabbard wind farm off the East coast of England. This wind farm is currently under construction and will have a total capacity of more than 500 MW on completion in 2011. RWE Innogy is also involved in the construction of the first Belgian offshore wind farm, Thornton Bank (300 Megawatt). The first expansion phase of this wind farm is already in commercial operation with an installed output of 30 megawatt.
This could help reduce overall off-shore wind energy costs.
Posted by: kelly | 07 December 2009 at 05:50 AM
I agree kelly...a very smart idea. It must be a very wasteful & costly process to build offshore windfarms right now, and there must also be a lot of business anticipated in the future for them to go to the lengths of building customized turbine installation ships.
Posted by: ejj | 07 December 2009 at 06:31 AM
Far off-shore wind farms may be the answer for USA (and many other countries) where objections to land based units are almost unmanageable. Secondly, the wind quality is normally much better.
Another possibily is high mountain top units where wind quality in very good, but they would have to be invisible to be accepted.
A third (huge) possibility are many un-inhabited sea shores like Labrador, Ungava, Hudson Bay, James Bay etc with very high quality winds. A recent study established the potential at over 100,000 mega-watt with large 5 to 10 mega-watt turbines. Existing very high voltage power lines, to the nearby hydro plants, could be modified to carry the extra energy, to the Maritimes provinces and New England States.
All technologies required already exist. The cost could be up to $100B for the installed large turbines + up to another $70B for the power lines and right of way.
It could be an interesting 20+ years project.
Posted by: HarveyD | 07 December 2009 at 10:04 AM
My experience with the slower paced sustainable rural living (can't rightly claim farming - yet) constantly reinforces the desirability of doing more with less.
The old saying was to kill two birds with one stone today we have better tools and should aim for four or five *.
In this context wind power can also provide to remote offshore communities or facilities.
The benefits include remote control operation, reduced supply logistics.
The offshore may be islands, levies, bridges, structures with multiple uses are best from a cost sharing perspective.
The costs may be met by the first high priority uses and secondary and tertiary applications can have zero or even negative costs .
When a tertiary user offers say a scheduled visit say monthly that by sharing a service could save will save the primary user a logistics cost.
Posted by: arnold | 07 December 2009 at 04:27 PM