Dutch marine and offshore services provider Boskalis said this week it has completed the installation of the fifth and final floating wind turbine at the Kincardine floating wind farm off the UK, currently the world's largest floating wind farm.
"Last week we successfully connected the fifth and last floating wind turbine to the pre-installed mooring spread in the field offshore Aberdeen," the company said in a social media post on Thursday.
"This marks the finalization of an impressive transport and installation project within the emerging floating wind industry. Kincardine is not only one of the first commercial floating wind farms in the world, it will also be the largest because of its nominal capacity of 50MW," Boskalis said.
Boskalis towed the first floating wind turbine to Grupo Cobra's Kincardine site offshore Scotland back in December 2020.
The wind farm features Principle Power-developed Windfloat semi-submersible foundations on which five MHI Vestas V164-9.5 MW offshore wind turbines are installed.
Boskalis has been tasked with pre-installing anchors and mooring lines, as well as transporting and installing all five MHI Vestas' floating wind turbines at the Kincardine offshore wind farm site.
The Dutch company was also responsible for the transportation of the floating foundations from the fabrication yard in Ferrol in Spain to Rotterdam. These were transported by semi-submersible barge Fjord, which was towed by AHT vessel Seraya.
Rotterdam is where the wind turbines were mounted on the foundations and then towed to the wind farm.
Worth noting, the Kincardine floating wind farm will remain the world's largest wind farm of the type for another year or so.
Namely, across the North Sea in Norway, Equinor is building its 88MW Hywind Tampen floating wind project, which is scheduled to go online in the third quarter of 2022.
While the Kincardine floating wind farm will at that point lose the 'world's largest' title, it will still boast the most powerful turbines installed on a floating wind farm.
Namely, Equinor's Hywind Tampen will feature 11 Siemens Gamesa SG 8.0-167 DD turbines, compared to Kincardine wind farm's MHI Vestas V164-9.5 MW turbines.
Kincardine Floating Offshore Wind
Developer: Kincardine Offshore Wind, Ltd (KOWL). Majority owned by the Cobra Group
EPC Contractor: Cobra Wind International Limited (CWIL).
Turbines: 5 x V164-9.525 MW + 1 V80-2.0 MW
Foundation: WindFloat (floating, semi-submersible type)
Project Capacity: 49.625 MW
Location: Aberdeen Bay, Scotland
Distance from Shore: 15 km
Sea Depth: 60-80 meters
Nominal Voltage: 33 kV
Number of homes powered annually: 35,000
Expected life: 25 years
*Homepage photo supplied by Boskalis