German energy giant RWE has hired the Dutch offshore survey services firm Fugro to complete a geophysical survey off the Danish west coast as part of the development of Thor, Denmark's largest offshore wind farm.
Up to three survey vessels will be deployed to carry out a detailed pre-construction survey, including a search for unexploded ordnance (UXO) up to approximately 34 kilometers off the coast of Thorsminde. The data acquired is important and will define the cable routes and exact turbine locations for RWE’s Thor offshore wind farm, Fugro said.
This is not Fugro's first involvement in the project, as its previous stint included a comprehensive geotechnical site investigation conducted in 2022.
Günther Fenle, Project Director Thor Offshore Wind Farm, RWE Offshore Wind, said: “We are looking forward to using the data collected by Fugro to finalize the layout of the wind farm and to determine the routes for the inter-array and export cables. This is an important step towards the start of the construction works at sea in 2025.”
Marc Kebbel, Fugro’s Service Line Director of Hydrography and Cable Route Surveys, said: “We are using a wide range of survey techniques, comprising offshore and nearshore standard geophysical and UXO survey techniques, a seismic land refraction survey, and last but not least, Fugro’s rapid airborne multibeam mapping system (RAMMS) for comprehensive mapping of the shallow area and beach in the transition zone.”
The UXO campaign for RWE’s Thor offshore wind farm will run until December 2023.
“The metocean challenges posed by Thor's exposed offshore location, such as high waves and strong wind in autumn and winter are adding to the complexity. Our ongoing collaboration with RWE reinforces our position as a trusted partner in the development of clean energy solutions,” added Kebbel.
With a planned capacity of 1,000 megawatts (MW) Thor will be Denmark’s largest offshore wind farm to date. Once fully operational, which is planned to be no later than 2027, Thor would be capable of producing enough green electricity to supply the equivalent of more than one million Danish households.
RWE, in late 2021, won the rights to build Thor via a lottery system.
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