Dounreay Tri Limited has awarded the contract for the construction of a novel floating wind farm off the northern coast of Scotland to Global Energy Group, a Scottish energy sector service company.
The Dounreay Tri facility will be a two-turbine, wind farm using floating foundations deployed 9 km off the Caithness coast. The prototype installation will put Scotland at the forefront of developing floating offshore wind turbine technology, Dounreay Tri said.
Global Energy Group will carry out the works at its Nigg Energy Park facility in the Scottish Highlands. Dounreay Tri, owned by Swedish firm Hexicon AB, has also entered into an agreement with the Highland port of Scrabster for the servicing of the wind farm.
Dounreay Tri is aiming to commission the 10 MW wind farm in 2018. It hopes to secure planning permission and consents from Marine Scotland and Scottish ministers by the end of March 2017.
Mr Ian Cobban, Executive Vice President, Capital Projects, for Global Energy Group commented: “Once planning is confirmed we envisage fabrication works will commence in Summer 2017, with assembly works within Nigg Energy Park’s Dry Dock facility through to the first half of 2018. The main floating structure will be around 190 m by 100 m including columns of 30 m height, making it the largest structure to be loaded out of our facility in recent years.”
Floating offshore wind technology offers the potential to open up deep water coastal areas that are not economic to develop using current, conventional offshore wind turbine foundations.
