Huge Jan de Nul crane vessel chosen for world's largest wind farm

Dogger Bank Wind Farms, the world's largest offshore wind farm, has announced that Luxembourg-based maritime infrastructure specialist Jan De Nul is to join the North Sea project.

The Jan De Nul-owned Voltaire, a new offshore jack-up installation vessel, which stands taller than the Eiffel Tower and has a lifting capacity of over 3,000 tonnes, is the largest of its kind in the world.

The vessel, which takes its name from the 18th century French Enlightenment philosopher, will be launched from the Cosco shipping yard in Qidong, China, and make its way for the UK's east coast.

Its duties will include the transport and installation of the world’s largest offshore wind turbines, GE’s Haliade-X, at Dogger Bank, which sits 130 km off the Yorkshire coast. When complete, Dogger Bank will generate enough energy to power over 4.5 million homes every year – around 5% of the UK’s electricity needs.

The announcement marks the first contract placed for Voltaire, which will enter in to service in 2022. The vessel is fitted with a highly advanced exhaust filtering system by means of a Selective Catalytic Reduction system and a Diesel Particulate Filter, making it the very first seagoing installation vessel of its kind to be an UltraLow Emission vessel.

Steve Wilson, Project Director of Dogger Bank Wind Farms, said: “Jan De Nul Group has a proven track record of transporting and installing new generation offshore wind turbines at scale. Bringing the Voltaire vessel into the Dogger Bank project means we now have the most innovative turbines on the market being installed by the largest jack up vessel ever seen in the industry.”

Philippe Hutse, Offshore Director at Jan De Nul Group: “We are delighted to be selected as the transport and installation contractor for the next generation of turbines at Dogger Bank. The size of this giant project coincides perfectly with the capacities of our jack-up vessel Voltaire. It underlines that we are entering in to a new phase of offshore wind farm construction. We are proud to be at the forefront of offshore wind construction at Dogger Bank.”

The Dogger Bank Wind Farm is a joint development between Equinor and SSE Renewables. The project recently secured 3.6GW of offshore wind contracts from the UK government. 

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