Fugro has won a new marine site survey contract from Swedish energy player Vattenfall for its Norfolk Boreas offshore wind farm located off England’s east coast.
Following on from a four-month marine site characterisation campaign in 2020, Fugro will this August mobilise multiple geophysical and geotechnical vessels from local ports to complete full coverage surveys across the wind farm and its inter-array cables and export cable routes.
The first phase of the project will see geophysical and unexploded ordnance (UXO) surveys completed, followed by a 2D seismic survey. The collected geo-data will support the positioning of the inter-array cables and also enhance the safety of future operations, facilitate route planning and improve project design, the Dutch surveyor explained.
Following the fieldwork, the laboratory testing programme will be delivered by Fugro’s UK laboratories in Wallingford and Consett with support from their newly certified and accredited laboratory in Belgium. The resulting data will feed into the ground model for the Norfolk Vanguard and Norfolk Boreas wind farms to optimise foundation and cable design.
The 1.4 GW wind farm forms part of Vattenfall’s Norfolk Zone and will generate enough energy to power 1.5m UK homes while offsetting around 2.3m tonnes of carbon emissions a year.
