Heavy maintenance campaign completed on Hywind Scotland floating offshore wind farm

Equinor and Masdar, announced yesterday the completion of the maintenance campaign on Hywind Scotland floating offshore wind farm, with all five turbines now connected back to the grid.

Global Maritime is proud to have contributed significantly to this milestone project for Equinor and Masdar, providing services encompassing the front-end engineering design (FEED), and project management, engineering, and marine operations as Operational Maintenance Contractor.

The FEED study, initiated in August 2023, was awarded to Global Maritime to assess the feasibility and methods for completing the Main Component Exchange on the five Hywind Scotland FWTs within a single season.

In December 2023, Global Maritime were awarded the Operational Maintenance contract, with the scope of works comprising:

• Preparatory works at the field including offshore management of the W2W campaign.
• Engineering and Offshore Management of the Inter Array and Export cable laydown and Re-Connection.
• Engineering and Offshore Management of the Mooring Disconnection and Towing Operations
• Engineering, installation, Marine Operations and Management of the complete Barge layout at the Assembly site incl. the coordination role of all activities at site.
• Lifting analysis for the blade and Nacelle lifts.

Key Project Facts:

• 18 Cable Laydown and pull-ins completed
• 10 Towing operations with a combined towing distance of more than 3.000NM
• 30 Mooring line disconnection and re-connections
• 30 Blade lifts
• 10 Nacelle Lifts
• The first Inter-Array cable was lowered on the 17^th May and the first FWT was safely moored at Wergeland Base the 24^th
• First FWT was returned back at the field on the 15^th July and the final 5^th FWT was moored and had its cable pulled in on the 22^nd September 2024.

Mats Olsvik, Global Maritime’s COO and Hywind Scotland Project Manager, said “We are extremely proud to have contributed to the successful completion of the maintenance on Hywind Scotland. This campaign has provided GM with invaluable experience and insights that will strengthen our leadership in fully integrated marine operations for future offshore wind projects, while also supporting the growth and development of the floating wind industry."

As the world's first commercial floating offshore wind farm, Hywind Scotland, located off the coast of Peterhead, Scotland, has achieved a capacity factor of 54%. With a total generating capacity of 30 MW, the floating wind farm utilises a spar-substructure concept and produces enough electricity to meet the needs of around 35,000 UK households.