UK offshore support vessel owner and operator North Star has secured a long-term charter with energy utility giant EnBW for one of its newbuild hybrid-electric service operations vessels (SOV).
The decade-long minimum charter will see the vessel service the He Dreiht wind farm off the coast of Germany. He Dreiht is currently one of Europe’s largest energy transition projects and once operational, will supply green power to 1.1m homes.
The agreement marks North Star’s first offshore wind win outside the UK market as well as a step towards its European growth strategy to add 40 new SOVs to its fleet by 2040.
The SOV is scheduled to begin a long-term charter with EnBW from the end of next year and help maintain the development’s 64 wind turbines, located around 90 km northwest of the island of Borkum and 110 km west of Helgoland.
The newbuild is of Vard 407 design with Voith Schneider eVSP propulsion and is prepared for the use of methanol as a fuel. The ship also has a height-adjustable motion-compensated gangway and a 3D compensated crane.
This new contract win for North Star marks the seventh newbuild SOV for the company since entering the renewables market in 2021. Its first two SOVs – the Grampian Tyne and Grampian Derwent – were delivered ahead of schedule last year, with a further two ships for the same UK North Sea client on track for delivery this month and in February 2025.
This new hybrid-electric and methanol-fuelled newbuild is no surprise for North Star. The UK firm was one of three shipowning companies that agreed to take up the absolute zero emissions challenge last year posed by the Zero Emissions Ship Technology Association. The absolute zero challenge was also taken up by the Hong Kong-based tanker and bulker firm Wah Kwong and a Bahamas-headquartered containerline Veer Voyage. Unlike absolute zero emissions, net zero or carbon neutral implies some carbon/GHG emissions remain but allows for some form of offsetting.
In a probably related development regarding these latest newbuilds, India’s Cochin Shipyard announced on Wednesday it won a “prestigious international order” with an unnamed European client for a hybrid SOV for the offshore wind market, with an option for one more. North Star and Cochin said in separate press releases, without naming one another, that the vessels were a Vard design with both even attaching the same artist rendering in their statements.
