Transporting Wind Turbines for the first floating windfarm
Statoil’s Hywind Park is the first floating wind farm in the world and is located off Peterhead in Scotland. When fully operational, the wind park has a capacity of 30 MW. The novelty of the wind farm is that the wind turbines do not rest on the seafloor but float by way of an anchored, subsea section that is buoyant.
Through this system, the wind turbines can be located in much deeper waters than usual. Offshore heavy lifting specialist BigLift was contracted to transport the upper section of the five wind turbines from Bilbao in Spain to Stord in Norway. These five turbines were part of a pilot project. BigLift’s vessel, Traveler, carried a total of 15 sections ranging from 184 to 203 t in weight and 16 to 41 meters (52-135 feet) in length. For the loading and unloading operations, Green Pin® Sling Shackles BN were used.