Van Oord Awarded Polish Offshore Wind Contract
Van Oord has been contracted for the construction of the Baltica 2 Offshore Wind Farm, developed by Ørsted and PGE. The wind farm is located 40 kilometres offshore in the Polish area of the Baltic Sea.
Van Oord will transport and install 111 extended monopiles, of which 107 will serve as foundations for wind turbines and the other four as foundations for offshore substations.
Van Oord will deploy offshore installation vessel Aeolus and heavy-lift installation vessel Svanen on the project. The Svanen will undergo a major upgrade this year. The extension of the gantry crane will make the Svanen one of the largest floating heavy-lift installation vessels worldwide and will increase its lifting capacity. As a result of this upgrade, the Svanen will be able to install the foundations for the new generation 14MW wind turbines used at the Baltica 2 Offshore Wind Farm.
The foundations for this offshore wind farm are extended monopiles, combining the traditional combination of a monopile and transition piece in one element. This saves lifting activities offshore and makes the installation safer and faster. Van Oord’s flexible fallpipe vessel Nordnes will be deployed to accurately and efficiently install rock at all foundation locations.
With a production capacity of 1.5GW, the wind farm will be Poland’s largest-ever renewable energy project producing enough green energy to cover the power consumption of approximately 2.4 million Polish households.