Gwynt News

Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets (MIRA) has agreed to lift its shareholding in the 576-MW Gwynt y Mor offshore wind farm in the UK by purchasing an additional 10% stake for an undisclosed sum.MIRA has managed a 10 per cent stake in Gwynt y Môr since 2017 following Macquarie Group’s acquisition of the Green Investment Bank.Gwynt y Môr is a 576 MW offshore wind farm positioned 13 kilometers off the coast of North Wales. Operational since 2015, Gwynt y Môr is comprised of 160 3.6 MW wind turbines spread across 80 square kilometers. Each year, the wind farm provides enough clean electricity to power approximately 430,000 UK homes.Leigh Harrison, Head of MIRA EMEA, said: “We are delighted to announce an additional investment in Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm.

UK-based survey specialist Bibby HydroMap have announced the successful completion of testing of ‘DriX’, the 8-metre Autonomous Unmanned Survey Vessel (AUSV) developed by iXblue.Designed to provide a true extension of survey capability from shallow and inshore waters to a full offshore environment, DriX is a new breed of AUSV that is the first autonomous survey platform to truly rival the performance of a traditional survey vessel.The versatile system has the ability to accommodate a hydrographic and geophysical survey payload and to aid positioning of underwater vehicles, facilitating data collection on a variety of marine projects.Guillaume Edeline…

GAC UK has been appointed by Seaway Heavy Lifting (SHL) to provide essential shipping services support for the construction and installation of 84 new turbines as part of a major windfarm expansion project which will increase generating capacity almost six-fold. SHL, the engineering, procurement, construction and installation contractor, will design, supply and install the piled foundations, jacket substructures and inter-array cables for the Beatrice Offshore Windfarm Limited (BOWL) project in the Outer Moray Firth. They will also transport and install the offshore substations. Both SHL’s crane vessels will be deployed: HLV Stanislav Yudin’ from April 2017 to April 2018, HLV ‘Oleg Strashnov’ from August to October 2017 and again from May to July 2018.

New capacity more than doubled in 2015 due backlog; existing projects to bring more expansion in coming years. Growth in new offshore wind capacity in Europe is to slow this year after more than doubling in 2015, an industry report said on Tuesday. "New capacity additions will be lower in 2016 than 2015 though should then rebound, and we can expect to have (an installed total) over 20 GW (20,000 MW) offshore wind by 2020," said the chief executive officer of the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), Giles Dickson. The report for 2015 showed that new capacity linked to onshore grids totalled 3,019 megawatts (MW) last year after 1,483 MW in 2014. This was mostly due to a strong backlog of network connections in Germany in that particular year, EWEA said.

New capacity edges down 5 pct from record 2013; industry body forecasts stable growth over 2015/6. Europe's offshore wind capacity kept up a steady rate of growth in 2014 and should expand at a similar pace on average over the coming two years, an industry report said on Friday. New capacity connected to the grid totalled 1,483 megawatts (MW), edging down from 1,567 MW in 2013 when a record number of turbines and wind farms were installed, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) said. Total installed wind capacity now stands at around 8,045 MW, enough to cover 1 percent of Europe's electricity needs, it said. "It is not surprising that we see a levelling off of installations in 2014 following a record year in 2013," EWEA Deputy Chief Executive Justin Wilkes said in a statement.

Fugro say they have been awarded two contracts to perform cable burial and survey operations at two wind farm sites in the UK. The first contract is for CT Offshore A/S at RWE Innogy's Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm located in Liverpool Bay off the North Wales coast. The work involves the burial and post-burial survey of 63 inter-array cables. The second contract is a similar work-scope at a wind-farm located off the UK East coast. The projects will run consecutively with work commencing in January and completing in the 3rd quarter of 2014.

Specialist overwater drilling and marine construction contractor Fugro Seacore is building a pile top drill, the T120, for the offshore wind farm market to assist with monopole installations of up to eight meters diameter. Their current big drill has 90 metric tons of rotational torque; the new one will have 120 metric tons. This new addition to the fleet means they will have two drills capable of relief drilling piles of larger than six-meter diameter simultaneously, for instances where larger monopiles are the chosen foundation for the wind farm sites of Round three in U.K.

Ruud Lievaart, owner of Netherlands-based Sima Charters, has inked the agreement for a second CTruk 20T multi-purpose catamaran during Seawork International in Southampton this week. For CTruk this signing means that every client it works with has taken a second CTruk vessel, the company said. The new 18.5m composite workboat, to be named SC Falcon, is expected to join Sima Charters’ expanding fleet of offshore tender boats in February 2014. Instantly recognizable in the field from it bright yellow and blue livery…

Reef Subsea today announced that it will undergo a strategic group-wide restructure. Duncan Macpherson, who previously held the role of Managing Director of Reef Subsea Norway, has been promoted as the CEO of Reef Subseawith the responsibility of implementing the new strategy. Reef Subsea offers a powerful combination of integrated subsea services to the oil and gas and offshore renewables markets. Over the past six months, Reef Subsea has launched a project based operation in West Africa, with two vessels now operating in the region.

CWind wins contract for 6 CTruk 20T multi-purpose cats to provide crew & load transfer services at Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm. Cwind say that this is their largest vessel contract win, and the six workboats will arrive on site over the next two months as construction activity picks up. The two most recent additions to CWind’s charter fleet, 'CWind Adventure' and 'SC Buzzard', are the first vessels to join the Siemens team at Gwynt y Môr. Both are of CTruk’s proven 20T MPC design…

Six offshore wind energy trainees from North Wales have successfully completed a year-long training program with the UK’s only dedicated academy for the offshore wind industry and are ready to take up positions in this rapidly expanding industry. The trainees were fortunate enough to be selected for Offshore Marine Academy structured traineeship, which selects candidates with an affinity for the marine and coastal environment and aim to prepare them for a new career in offshore wind.

Global Marine Energy lands first export cable from 'Cable Enterprise' at Gwynt y Môr 576 MW offshore wind farm. The cable was landed by GME’s recently launched vessel, Cable Enterprise, and is the first of four export cables to be installed at the project site. Each of the export cables are between 18km and 22km in length linking the north coast of Wales to the offshore wind farm in Liverpool Bay. Gwynt y Môr Offshore Wind Farm is one of the largest currently in construction in Europe and is being built by RWE npower renewables.

Global Marine Systems Energy contracted A&P North East to ready 'Cable Enterprise' for offshore wind farm operations. The project took 110 days work to make the vessel ready for a contract on the Gwynt y Mor offshore wind farm, situated off the coast of Wales. Works carried out by A&P North East on the project included; fitting of a carousel to the main deck and under deck stiffening along with  fabrication and installation of a number of items including a forward cow catcher, bulwalk sections, A-Frame seats and plough carriage.

At 576MW The Gwynt y Môr offshore wind farm will be one of the largest in Europe. The contract requires Reef Subsea Power & Umbilical assist with engineering, project management, ROV and survey operations linked to the subsea installation and burial of all infield array cables for Gwynt y Môr, located 13 kilometres off the North Wales coast in Liverpool Bay. The wind farm will have an installed capacity of 576MW, and is designed to be ultimately integrated into the UK National Grid in 2014. Reef Subsea Power & Umbilical (RSPU) has been tasked with installing and burying the 161 infield inter array cables. Workscope also covers connection to the two offshore sub-stations.

During a festive ceremony in Bremerhaven , RWE Innogy named one of its two offshore installation vessels. The vessel “Victoria Mathias” will build the wind farm “Nordsee Ost” around 30 kilometres north of the island of Heligoland from its base port Bremerhaven. The wind power station with an installed output of 295 megawatts can supply around 295,000 German households with electricity each year. The installation vessel is the first of its kind worldwide to be able to transport…

Chelmsford UK - Global Marine Energy Ltd. has invested in the refit and development of Cable Enterprise, a barge built specifically for the installation of power cables for offshore wind farms. Cable Enterprise, which will be officially launched in Middlesbrough in the North East of England, will be used for a range of offshore installation projects, including export cables and interconnect cables. The increase in offshore electricity transmission has triggered a need for vessels which are designed to adapt to the specific requirements of offshore wind farms and their accompanying conditions and challenges. “Due to the increased demand for offshore power cable installation…

Subsea cable specialist, Offshore Marine Management (OMM) has strengthened its position in operation and maintenance with the recruitment of industry specialist, Stephen Bolton to the newly created position of Director of Operations and Maintenance. Stephen has more than 10 years experience in the emerging renewable energy market, in both the onshore and offshore wind sectors. His background includes his recent work as Offshore Operations Implementation Manager at RWE Innogy where he established one of the industry’s first dedicated teams to focus on the operations and maintenance methodology for large far shore wind farms on a portfolio basis. On establishing the strategy, he was responsible for its implementation on the Gwynt y Mor and Nord See Ost projects, among others.

Wärtsilä, in consortium with IMS Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH, has been engaged by RWE Innogy, the renewable energy arm of the German utility company RWE, as its designer to provide the basic design and consultancy services for a jack up crane vessel. Two such vessels with GL class-approval have been ordered by RWE Innogy to be used for constructing offshore wind farms. The shipbuilding contracts have been awarded to Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. Ltd. (DSME) and delivery of the vessels is scheduled for late 2011.