A joint venture between Hochtief Construction and the project and heavy lift carrier provider Beluga Shipping has commissioned the construction of a special jack-up vessel for the more rapid assembly of offshore wind turbines from the Polish shipyard Crist.
The vessel should go into service in 2012, in order to meet the big demand for special equipment in this booming market. It will measure 147m LOA with a beam of 42m.
Beluga Hochtief Offshore developed an innovative concept and the design to handle these tasks and will also operate and charter the vessel once it is built. The vessel will be used by Hochtief for offshore construction work.
Henner Mahlstedt, chairman of the executive board of Hochtief Construction said, ‘There is huge interest from market players. We are therefore considering the construction of a second jack-up vessel.’ According to Mahlstedt, Hochtief expects annual sales of almost half a billion euros from the Group’s entire offshore business.
‘With this special, state of the art jack-up vessel, we will be able to significantly reduce the assembly and servicing times required for latest generation offshore wind turbines, thus hugely increasing productivity, said Niels Stolberg, president and CEO of Beluga Shipping. ‘The installation of wind turbines at sea will thus become safer, more efficient and cheaper.’
Every year, the jack-up vessel will be able to install more than 80 wind turbines, each with a height of over 120m, in water depths of up to 50m. The vessel’s most distinctive features are its high load capacity of 8,000 tons, its high performance 1,500 ton crane, and its powerful drive. Elaborate simulations have shown that the vessel can be deployed when the sea is rough.
The EU Commission estimates that investments in offshore wind farms will increase to over €200bn by 2030.
According to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), in the next six years installed offshore output should increase tenfold, reaching up to 15 gigawatts. Experts say that the biggest obstacle to growth is a shortage of assembly capacity for this kind of offshore power plant.
Hochtief is involved in the development of almost all German offshore wind farms, whilst Beluga Shipping, with a fleet of around 70 multipurpose heavy-lift project carriers, specialises in the sea transport of complex cargoes, including wind turbines.
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