Monopile Installation Continues at Vineyard Wind 1 Site Offshore US

The DP3 installation vessel Orion, owned and operated by the Belgian offshore construction specialist DEME, is scheduled to begin installing the remaining monopile foundations at the Vineyard Wind 1 site in the US on or around 28 October, as disclosed in the project’s recent offshore wind mariner update.

Prior to installation, the POLARIS and HOS RUGER vessels will be working to deploy and recover a double big bubble curtain (DBBC) system around pile-driving operations.

Before each pile-driving operation, the DBBC will be deployed on the seafloor, tested, and activated before the arrival of the Orion vessel. Installation of each bubble curtain will take approximately two to four hours, according to Vineyard Wind, a joint venture between Avangrid and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners (CIP).

After completion of pile-driving activities, the DBBC gear will be recovered by POLARIS and HOS RUGER and brought to the next foundation installation location.

Once an individual monopile foundation installation is complete, DEME Group’s jack-up vessel, Sea Challenger, will install accompanying transition pieces (TPs) onto foundation sites.

This work is planned to commence at the beginning of November. Operations will be supported by GO FREEDOM, GO PATRIOT, and GO GLORY vessels.

DEME Offshore US is transporting and installing the monopile foundations, TPs, offshore substation, and scour protection, as well as the offshore substation foundation and platform. The company is also responsible for the installation of wind turbines.

The first of 62 monopile foundations, supplied by EEW Special Pipe Constructions (EEW SPC), was installed[1] at the site, 15 miles off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, in June 2023.

The 800 MW offshore wind farm will comprise 62 GE Vernova’s Haliade-X 13 MW wind turbines[2], each with a 220-metre rotor and 107-metre blades.

Earlier this year, a breakage of the blade on one of the wind turbines occurred, which was caused by a manufacturing deviation, the company’s CEO Scott Strazik revealed during an earnings call in July.

That same month, the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) issued[3] an order instructing Vineyard Wind to suspend electricity production from all wind turbines until it could be determined whether the blade failure affected any other of the project’s turbines.

Following authorization in mid-August[4] to resume certain activities, eight new towers and nacelles have been installed on the project, according to Vineyard Wind.

Last week, the company announced that GE Vernova plans to remove some blades and strengthen others as part of their incident and response action plan.

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