Winery Wind 1 completes first turbine set up

Marking a milestone in U.S. offshore wind improvement, set up of the primary GE Haliade-X Wind Turbine Generator (WTG) on the Winery Wind 1 challenge was accomplished this week. It was hailed as a “first-in-the-nation” achievement by Winery Wind builders Avangrid, Inc. and Copenhagen Infrastructure Companions.

The finished Haliade-X turbine consists of 1 tower, three blades, and one nacelle, and the absolutely assembled machine is the biggest turbine within the western world, with a nameplate capability of 13 MW able to offering energy to greater than 6,000 properties and companies in Massachusetts.

“Having the primary offshore wind turbine within the water for the primary business offshore wind farm within the US is a crucial symbolic milestone for our firm, our clients, and our business,” stated Jan Kjaersgaard, CEO, GE Vernova Offshore Wind. “It reveals that our groups are making tangible progress on delivering on the numerous potential of offshore wind. We’re notably proud to be utilizing our Haliade-X 13 MW turbine to assist Winery Wind on this endeavor and stay up for persevering with to work along with them and all of our companions to deliver this historic challenge to life.”

HI TECH FEEDERING SOLUTION

Getting that first turbine accomplished and put in additionally proved the viability of the feedering answer chosen for the challenge by Winery Wind. Again in April 2021 it chosen DEME Offshore US LLC as its contractor for the offshore transport and set up of the generators, with DEME Offshore US teaming up with Foss Maritime Firm to offer Jones Act compliant feeder vessels to move the wind generators from the port of New Bedford, Mass., to the specialised foreign-flag set up jack-up vessel.

Subsequently DEME contracted with Netherlands primarily based Barge Grasp to successfully flip the Foss barges into good feeder barges, by becoming them with movement compensation platforms. It awarded one other Dutch firm, Seaqualize, the primary contract for its newly developed offshore lifting system: the Heave Chief 1100 to compensate heave movements as elements had been lifted from the barges by the set up vessel.

Barge Grasp explains that in the course of the feedering operations its platforms compensated the vessel motions to make sure that the tower sections remained regular all through the lifting course of whereas Seaqualize’s answer compensated for the vertical actions. Each applied sciences mixed resulted in a seamless and secure lifting operation, moreover growing the climate window considerably.

“We’re extraordinarily pleased with our group’s distinctive efficiency in delivering a profitable feeder operation for the Winery Wind 1 challenge,” stated Martijn Koppert, CEO of Barge Grasp. “This achievement showcases our experience in movement compensation options and highlights the worth of our collaboration with DEME and robust U.S. events like Foss. Collectively, we’re contributing to the event of fresh vitality in america.”

For this challenge Barge Grasp developed the “Heavy Feeder” system, to compensate for the load and peak of the immense GE Haliade X Tower sections. This technique can compensate weights of as much as 1,500 tons in sea states of Hs 2.5 meters.