The Statoil Hywind project was the first offshore installed wind power unit, installed offshore SW Norway.
As one of the world’s leading suppliers in offshore anchoring technology, Vryhof Anchors has become increasingly involved in the MRE (marine renewable energy) industry, in particular for feasibility studies and engineering services for the mooring of Offshore Wind Energy Solutions.
The first floating wind energy unit, Statoil’s Hywind offshore Norway, is moored on Vryhof’s anchors, as is the award-winning Principle Power/ EDP WindFloat project offshore Portugal for which it also supervised the installation.
Currently Vryhof is involved in main offshore renewable energy projects such as the FP7 Inflow Project, where it works in a Consortium coordinated by Technip to utilise the Vertiwind tower concept for an offshore wind farm with multiple floating units. Furthermore it is involved in other main developments in France, Germany, Spain, the UK, Japan and the USA.
Vryhof Anchors’ role in MRE projects is twofold: as mooring engineering consultancy liaising with leading engineering companies (i.e. Technip, Acciona, Ideol) on development of the mooring concept and in the execution stage to provide anchors and supervise installation.
This concerns most known systems such as Offshore Windmills, Pelagic and Tidal systems, Ocean Thermic Energy (OTE) and Offshore Energy Storage Systems.
The semi-submersible floating wind energy platform WindFloat installed offshore Portugal.
Vryhof’s contribution to Offshore Wind Energy Projects may consist of one of the following services in an advising, reviewing or commenting role:
• Advise on soil data requirements and site investigation campaign
• Analyse the site and soil data, carry out geotechnical characterisation
• Optimization of the mooring system, design basis and design loads
• Optimize and select most suitable anchor type and size
• Manufacture and supply of mooring anchors
In general the services are performed on an interact basis with the partners in the project, contributing typical offshore mooring related disciplines for the concept development, design stages as well as for the installation.
The Vertiwind wind tower concept will be used in the French INFLOW project.
Filed Under: Construction, Offshore wind
