Swedish energy company Vattenfall is looking into an accident that resulted in components falling into the sea during maintenance work at the Ormonde offshore wind farm in the Irish Sea.
Namely, MPI Offshore, an offshore installation unit of Van Oord, last week dropped three wind turbine blades and a blade clamping tool into the sea, while conducting scheduled maintenance on the Ormonde wind farm site.
According to the notice to mariners, the jackup vessel MPI Adventure, which arrived at the site earlier this month, jacked-up with the Ormonde B01 wind turbine, and lost three 61m turbine blades and a 3000-3100 kg blade clamp tool.
A Vattenfall spokesperson said that no one was injured during the incident and the relevant authorities were alerted immediately. Coastal debris linked to the incident could be widespread, the operator has warned. A clean-up operation is underway, as well as an investigation into how it happened.
The 150 MW Ormonde offshore wind farm is located in the Irish Sea, around 10 km from the coast at Barrow-in-Furness in the northwest of the UK. The 30-turbine wind farm has been in operation since 2011.
