World's Deepest Offshore Wind Foundation Installed in Scotland

Italian energy services firm Saipem has installed what has been described as the world’s deepest offshore wind turbine foundation at Scotland’s largest offshore wind farm – Seagreen.

Last Friday, Seaway 7 transported the jacket foundation on a barge to the offshore site it was met by the semisubmersible crane vessel Saipem 7000 which is used to lift each of the 2,000-tonne turbine foundations into place.

"The installation of the jacket means Seagreen has now topped its own record from October 2022, when a previous foundation was installed at a depth of 57.4 meters (approximately 188 feet). The deepest foundation has been installed at a depth of 58.6 meters," SSE Renewables, a partner in the Seagreen project, said.

The milestone also marked the installation of the 112th jacket at the 114-wind turbine wind farm which is a £3bn joint venture between SSE Renewables and TotalEnergies. The final wind turbine foundation is expected to be installed later this week.

John Hill, Seagreen's Project Director, said: "More than 50 people are involved each time a foundation installation takes place, including the onshore team, ballast engineer, tug captain, crew, riggers, welders, tow master, and pilot.

Our ability to install jackets at this depth, in what is a challenging geographical area, boosts the UK’s energy security and means that consumers can benefit from the strong winds available far out in the North Sea."

Each foundation will support a Vestas V164-10 MW turbine. First power was achieved in August 2022, with the offshore wind farm expected to enter commercial operation later this year."

When complete, the 1.1GW wind farm will be capable of generating around 5,000 GWh of electricity annually, which is enough to power more than 1.6 million UK homes.,

Export cable trenching

In other Seagreen-related news, offshore cable installation firm Nexans AS will trench the three HVDC export cables within the nearshore cable landfall site at Carnoustie Beach, Angus. During this operation, two vessels will be used to bury the three HVDC cables. 

The utility vessel Green Isle and RHIB Echo are expected to start operations on or around April 16.