CAPE Holland, a leading supplier of innovative foundation installation equipment for the offshore industry, has been awarded a contract by installation contractor DEME for the delivery of a CAPE VLT spread. The CAPE Vibro Lifting Tool will be used to upend and safely install monopiles through the soil layers at risk of pile run up to a stable depth for the Moray West offshore wind turbine foundations.
The piles will be driven to final penetration with an impact hammer. The monopiles have diameters up to 10 meter, measure up to 93 meters in length and weigh up to nearly 2,000 tons. The technology mitigates possible pile runs and is much quieter compared to pile driving with an impact hammer.
The CAPE VLT has a safe working load of 3,000 tons and the spreads also include power units, hose reels and a control cabin. DEME will be responsible for the installation of the monopiles using the CAPE VLT. DEME will deploy its Offshore Heavy Lift DP3 Installation Vessel Orion with its 5,000 tons crane capacity for the installation campaign.
“We couldn’t be happier that DEME has trusted us with this essential piece of equipment to make their monopile installation a safe and efficient operation”, said Kai Fiand, Sales Manager at CAPE Holland. “Building the world’s largest and most powerful Vibro Lifting Tool to be used from this state-of-the-art installation vessel is very exciting for us.”
DEME commented, “We are looking forward to work with CAPE Holland on this project. We are confident that the CAPE VLT will help us with the safe installation of the monopiles for the Moray West offshore wind farm.”
The Moray West offshore wind farm is located off the east coast of Scotland in the Moray Firth. The 882MW wind farm will have the capacity to power up to 1.3 million homes in the United Kingdom. The development consists of 60 offshore wind turbines and two substations, using monopile foundations. Due to the large wind turbine size (14+ megawatts) and water depth (between 35 and 55 meters), XXL monopiles weighing up to 2,000 tons each will be installed.