Wood Group for major UK offshore wind farm
30 Oct 2012
London – Wood Group has been awarded a £17-million management contract to fabricate, install, commission, operate and maintain two weather monitoring stations in one of the UK’s largest offshore wind farm developments off the Norfolk and Suffolk coast.
The project will be delivered by the Wood Group Kenny business unit, including leading renewable energy consultancy SgurrEnergy.
The masts will collect vital wind data that will be used to design the wind farm and estimate the long term energy production of the site.
SgurrEnergy will manage the supply, installation and commissioning of the full instrumentation, power and ancillary top side monitoring equipment using Carl C lattice tower met masts.
Fabrication and offshore installation management of the monopile structure to support the equipment platform and tower met mast will be undertaken by Wood Group Kenny, applying its extensive offshore industry experience.
Fabrication of the meteorological (met) masts will start in November 2012 and installation in the East Anglia Offshore Wind Zone is planned for summer 2013.
As part of the operation and maintenance contract Wood Group Kenny has already recruited four employees to fill key positions within the project.
ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall, the joint developers of the East Anglia Offshore Wind zone, have said that the offshore weather monitoring stations will provide essential data for an area bigger than Norfolk and inform key technical and engineering decisions for the wind farm.
East Anglia Offshore Wind is a 50-50 joint venture between Scottish Power Renewables and Vattenfall. The project has the potential to deliver 7,200MW of installed capacity.
