SPT Offshore: Dong Riffgrund
Tuesday 26 August 2014,Under contract with DONG Energy, SPT Offshore successfully installed the 3 suction buckets forming the foundation of the Suction Bucket Jacket (SBJ) for a 3.6 MW 120 Siemens wind turbine as part of the Borkum Riffgrund wind farm offshore Germany.
The SBJ foundation is the world’s first jacket founded on suction buckets used for offshore wind turbines. The SBJ jacket including transition piece and the 3 buckets was lifted and lowered to the seabed in one piece with a total of only 850 ton. The three (3) suction buckets measure 8m diameter by 8m height. The local water depth is 25m. The 3 suction buckets were installed using 3 individual suction pumps, thereby having full control over the penetration of each suction bucket and the overall verticality of the SBJ. The achieved SBJ verticality was 0.04 degrees, i.e. near perfect. The Pacific Orca operated by GeoSea was used to transport and install the SBJ on the seabed. Mark Riemers, managing director of SPT Offshore is extremely pleased with the successful completion of this demonstration project and considers this as a step stone for cost effective realization of offshore wind farms.