Marine construction contractor Ocean Installer has joined the alliance of companies developing the Aspen floating offshore wind project in the North Sea.
Ocean Installer’s addition to the alliance will drive down the costs of installation and its existing fleet of vessels and workforce can be transferred to the floating offshore wind sector without significant adaptation.
The company will work in conjunction with fellow alliance member Haventus, owners of the Port of Ardersier, on dry storage of the structures, batched installation, and quick connect/disconnect systems to create a protocol for how future projects are installed.
Ocean Installer will provide proven engineering expertise and installation services, post-FID, for the mooring system installation, inter-array cables system and marshalling of the floating units during the fabrication phase, tow-out and hook up.
The Cerulean Winds-led alliance also consists of GoBe, NOV, Worley, Siemens Energy, and Bilfinger. The wind turbine supplier as well as the cable supplier and installer will be picked during the first quarter of 2025.
“For floating wind to be successful in the North Sea we’ve got to use expertise and experience from the oil and gas sector to turbo-charge the speed of cost reduction – that is what Ocean Installer is bringing to the project. Using their capabilities, we believe we can develop a standardised process to cut installation costs and make floating wind levelized cost of energy comparable to fixed offshore wind,” said Dan Jackson, founding director of Cerulean Winds.
Aspen, Beech, and Cedar wind farms will comprise over 300 turbines. The 1GW Aspen site will be developed first, providing new offshore wind capacity and helping the UK to meet its 50GW by 2030 target.
