Dutch services firm Fugro has begun a four-month marine site characterisation campaign at two major North Sea wind development sites.
The data from the geotechnical investigations will feed into the ground model for Vattenfall’s Norfolk Vanguard and Norfolk Boreas wind farms.
The sites, which have a total installed capacity of 3.6 GW, enough to power more than 3.9 million homes, are located more than 40km off the English county’s coast.
Fugro’s DP2 geotechnical drill ship will carry out the survey and sampling, with testing taking place in-situ and at the firm’s soils laboratories in Wallingford, UK, and Nootdorp in the Netherlands.
The work has been split in to two halves, with the first helping Vattenfall to optimise the wind turbine foundation engineering design and the second to assist in selecting the most efficient cable route.
The Swedish energy firm was given the green light for the 158-turbine Norfolk Vanguard development, which will join the Norfolk Boreas site, earlier this month after the UK Government overturned a decision that would delay the project.
Rob Anderson, Vatenfall’s project director for the two developments, said: “The Norfolk Vanguard and Norfolk Boreas projects are huge and complicated infrastructure projects requiring long-term planning and support from specialist service providers during their development and beyond.
“We are pleased to partner with Fugro on these important site investigation projects, who we can rely on to provide the necessary Geo-data for the next phase of engineering and procurement.”
John ten Hoope, Fugro’s marine site characterisation director for Europe and Africa, said: “We have been a trusted partner of Vattenfall in Europe for many years. These latest offshore wind contracts have further strengthened our working relationship, which is based not only on Fugro consistently delivering technical excellence but also on shared company values to create a safe and liveable world.”
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