Although not ready until 2022, Jan De Nul’s Voltaire has already landed its first contract. What will be the world’s largest offshore jack-up installation vessel will set to work on the world’s largest offshore wind farm: Dogger Bank Wind Farms.
The Voltaire is currently under construction at Cosco Shipping Heavy Industry in China. With an unrivalled crane capacity of over 3000 tonnes, this jack-up vessel will be able to build the offshore wind farms of the future and will also be deployable for the oil and gas industry, and for decommissioning of offshore structures.
The vessel, named after the pioneering European Enlightenment philosopher, is fitted with a highly advanced exhaust filtering system by means of a Selective Catalytic Reduction system and a Diesel Particulate Filter, making it the very first seagoing installation vessel of its kind to be an Ultra-Low Emission vessel.
World’s Largest Wind Turbines
For the Dogger Bank Wind Farms, located 130 kilometres off the Yorkshire coast, the Voltaire will transport and install another record-breaker: the world’s largest offshore wind turbines, GE’s Haliade-X. When complete, Dogger Bank will generate enough energy to power over 4.5 million homes every year – around five per cent of the UK’s electricity needs.
Philippe Hutse, Offshore Director at Jan De Nul Group: ‘We are delighted to be selected as the transport and installation contractor for the next generation of turbines at Dogger Bank. The size of this giant project coincides perfectly with the capacities of our jack-up vessel Voltaire. It underlines that we are entering in to a new phase of OWF construction. We are proud to be at the forefront of offshore wind construction at Dogger Bank.’
About Dogger Bank Wind Farms
- A fifty-fifty joint venture between Equinor and SSE Renewables
- Consent was granted in 2015.
- Located in the North Sea, approximately 130 kilometres from the Yorkshire Coast.
- Water depth ranges from twenty to 35 metres
- The Dogger Bank Wind Farms consist of three projects: Creyke Beck A, Creyke Beck B and Teesside A
- Each project will have an installed capacity of 1.2 gigawatts and will be able to power 1.5 million homes.
- The first project is expected to be operational in 2023.
- The wind turbine generators will be installed on monopile foundations
- The transmission system will be High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) due to long distance to grid connection point
- Final investment decision is expected in 2020
