
Ecosse Subsea Systems has extended a trenching scope on the Wikinger offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea with the award of a second seabed clearance project.
The Aberdeen company was last year awarded a contract by main contractor Prysmian Group to carry out pre-cut seabed trenching, prior to cable-laying on Iberdrola’s 70-turbine wind farm offshore Germany.
The initial contract has now doubled in scope with the award of route clearance and seabed preparation work on the 350-MW Wikinger development which will generate enough energy to power more than 350,000 homes.
Iberdrola’s global offshore wind projects are managed by Scottish Power Renewables in Glasgow.
Keith McDermott, Ecosse Subsea commercial director, said: “Detailed surveys discovered a number of obstacles on the proposed route and we have been contracted by Prysmian to carry out seabed clearance and route preparation prior to trenching work.
“This is an area in which we have a great deal of experience and strong track record of working in different terrains and our SCAR Route Clearance system has been used in similar projects in the Baltic Sea.”
Once the seabed is prepared ESS’s SCAR Seabed System will perform first pass and multi-pass trenching in preparation for Prysmian’s installation and burial of 81km of submarine cables which will connect the turbines to the offshore substation.