Island Crown to support construction at East Anglia ONE

A state-of-the-art vessel that allows workers on the East Anglia One Offshore Windfarm to effectively ‘walk to work’ was been contracted by Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy on behalf of ScottishPower Renewables.

The service offshore vessel (SOV), named Island Crown, will provide comfortable living conditions adjacent to the site located 43km off the Suffolk coast by enabling some 40 personnel involved in commissioning the windfarm to live offshore for up to two weeks at time.

The vessel was mobilised to Great Yarmouth on June 11 and is being provided by Island Offshore. The contract duration is for 275 days with an option for a further 90, providing work for the vessel until the summer of 2020.

It will supplement the daily crew transfers that already take place and increase efficiency on the major infrastructure project.

Charlie Jordan, ScottishPower Renewables Project Director for East Anglia ONE, said: “We’re delighted to secure the services of Island Crown through Siemens Gamesa. Given the scale of works involved, this vessel will provide comfortable living conditions, safe access to the 102 Wind Turbine Generators and more efficient working as we look to bring East Anglia ONE on line as quickly and safely as possible.

“The windfarm will soon be producing clean, renewable energy for the UK, helping to meet the nation’s bold carbon reduction targets and this contract award is another significant part of that journey.”

Andrew Elmes, Project Manager for Siemens Gamesa, said: “We are delighted to be able to bring on the Island Crown to support our wind turbine installation contract on the East Anglia ONE project.  This builds on the highly positive experience SGRE has had to date with the vessel and allows us to provide a familiar, safe and comfortable working environment for our commissioning teams.  Given the new High Voltage technology on this project, working alongside our customer on this SOV will allow better collaboration in the commissioning phase, increasing the effectiveness of our offshore work to get the turbines on line more quickly.”

Håvard Ulstein, Managing Director in Island Offshore Management AS, said: “We are very pleased to have secured more work for Island Crown with Siemens Gamesa. This new contract provides stability both for our crew and for us as owners, as well as saved time in terms of familiarisation for both Island Offshore and Siemens Gamesa.  For the past 11 months Siemens Gamesa has proved to be an excellent charterer and collaborating partner, and we look forward to continue our good relationship with the company.”

Construction is already under way at ScottishPower Renewables £2.5bn East Anglia ONE offshore windfarm, located 43km off the Suffolk coast. It will see 102 Siemens Gamesa turbines deployed each with a capacity of 7 megawatts, which could in total provide enough clean energy to power the equivalent of more than 630,000 homes annually.

East Anglia ONE is the first of four offshore windfarms ScottishPower Renewables is developing in the region.

The Island Crown has performed walk-to-work services at oil, gas and wind installations since delivery in 2013. The vessel is 96.8 meters long and 20 meters wide with accommodation for a total crew of 100 persons on board. It is equipped with a gangway system, subsea crane, large tank capacity and a cargo deck area of 561m2. It also comes with a helicopter platform allowing faster transfer of technicians if required.