Scope of Work
The FEED study, initiated in August 2023, was awarded to Global Maritime to assess the feasibility and methods for completing the Main Component Exchange on the five Hywind Scotland FWTs within a single season.
In December 2023, Global Maritime were awarded the Operational Maintenance contract, with the scope of works comprising:
- Preparatory works at the field including offshore management of the W2W campaign.
- Engineering and Offshore Management of the Inter Array and Export cable laydown and Re-Connection.
- Engineering and Offshore Management of the Mooring Disconnection and Towing Operations
- Engineering, installation, Marine Operations and Management of the complete Barge layout at the Assembly site incl. the coordination role of all activities at site.
- Lifting analysis for the blade and Nacelle lifts.
Challenges
Planning such operations require a quick turnaround on all parts of the scope ranging from fabrication, planning of commissioning and marine operations planning. This was solved by close dialogue and cooperation between all involved.
In-situ replacement is challenging with current technology, and therefore a tow-to-port scenario is currently the default approach for these types of replacements
Outcome
The scope of work was executed according to the mandate provided by the Client which included a very challenging timeline, without any incidents.
The project is the largest floating offshore wind main component exchange campaign, to date, globally.
As the world’s first commercial floating offshore wind farm, Hywind Scotland, located off the coast of Peterhead, Scotland, has achieved a capacity factor of 54%. With a total generating capacity of 30 MW, the floating wind farm utilises a spar-substructure concept and produces enough electricity to meet the needs of around 35,000 UK households.
