Rovco has secured a contract for rock bag deployment and installation at the Galloper offshore wind farm in the Outer Thames Estuary.
The subsea robotics and survey firm said the scope of its work will see it impelement an operator engineered solution for the installation of rock bags, which must be placed at precise locations on and around the cable protection systems (CPS) on the wind farm, 17 miles off the Suffolk coast.
Following previous subsea surveys, rock bag placement was selected from a number of options as the most suitable solution to eliminate or reduce excess cable movement. The bags help stabilise and prolong the life of the array cables which carry the generated electricity from the wind turbines.
Rovco will deploy the DPII subsea support vessel VOS Star – on charter from Vroon Offshore Services – to carry out the project, equipped with survey equipment and Rovco’s Seaeye Leopard WROV.
The company secured a charter for the 68m vessel earlier this year, with a view to supporting surveys at several offshore wind farms in UK and Dutch waters throughout the rest of 2022.
The 353MW Galloper Offshore Wind Farm has a site area of 180 square kilometres, with turbines in depths between 26.5m-39.5m.
It is owned by a consortium led by Macquarie Asset Management (25%), RWE Renewables (25%), Siemens Financial Services (25%), ESB (12.5%) and Sumitomo Mitsui (12.5%).
Galloper general manager Sean Chenery said: “We selected Rovco to install the rock bag solution due to their knowledge, experience and competitiveness in subsea operations. Placing rock bags on live cables at water depths of 26m–39m with tight tolerances is where Rovco’s equipment excels.”
Rovco chief revenue officer Simon Miller added: “Engineering solutions to extend the life of critical subsea infrastructure and ensuring uptime of these offshore assets and installations is crucial. This award by Galloper Offshore Wind Farm, to help them detect issues and implement their designed solution post engineering analysis, is testament to our team’s efforts across the company and real recognition of our growing presence in this market.”
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