Construction work on the Beatrice offshore wind power project has reached major milestone with the final cluster of foundation piles now safely installed – marking the end of the piling phase of offshore construction.
A total of 86 clusters of four piles (344 individual piles) are now in place in the Moray Firth. All were installed by a heavy lifting vessel using a 2,500-tonne, 110m revolving crane.
Jacket substructures are being installed onto each of the pile clusters. The jackets and foundation piles will then support the 7MW offshore wind turbines and two offshore transformer modules that make up the Beatrice offshore wind farm.
A Beatrice spokesman said: “Pile installation started in Spring 2017 and has been completed through a particularly challenging period of weather at the back end of the campaign.
“Now that piling is complete, we’ll continue with jacket installation and, as we move into summer 2018, start to install the first turbines.”