SeaRoc and McLaughlin & Harvey announce their partnership to support tidal and wave energy construction, installation and O&M projects10th May 2013International marine engineering companies SeaRoc and McLaughlin & Harvey have today announced a partnership to provide construction, installation and operation & maintenance services to tidal and wave energy developments.The companies have highly complementary competencies and capabilities and over the past 8 years they have each gained significant experience of designing and building tidal and wave energy projects. Working together, the two companies will use their combined experience to deliver an enhanced suite of services. They will provide the specialist solutions needed to meet the many and varied project demands which this rapidly maturing industry requires.Following its acquisition by Fred. Olsen Ltd. in 2010, SeaRoc has, in less than a decade, expanded its offering to include an all-encompassing offshore contracting capability, while still providing industry-focussed consultancy services. The team harbours a wealth of experience in offshore and marine construction activities from across the sector; including renewable energy, oil and gas, dredging, cable and pipe lay operations. This comprehensive industry knowledge brings the skills and capabilities needed for SeaRoc to deliver the construction projects with which the company now engages. SeaRoc has had, and continues to provide, a technical input into over 90% of UK offshore wind farm construction projects, as well as many of the leading tidal and wave energy developments to date.Building on its unrivalled track record of installing foundations for tidal energy devices, McLaughlin & Harvey is currently completing the first phase of a project to develop a commercially viable and cost effective foundation installation technique for tidal and wave energy convertors. The system has the potential to revolutionise the industry. Based on proven technologies it is suitable for most marine energy convertors and can be installed in a variety of geotechnical and bathymetric seabed conditions. McLaughlin & Harvey are investigating options to take this R&D project to the next phase so that, as the sector reaches commercial scale, they can provide a fully tooled and proven solution to overcome the installation challenges facing the tidal and wave energy industries. SeaRoc’s contribution also provides significant advantages to this McLaughlin and Harvey’s project through its experience of vessel operations.The collaboration between McLaughlin & Harvey and SeaRoc establishes an unrivalled combined portfolio of successful marine renewable energy installations and deployments, coupled with over a century of civil, marine and offshore engineering. This makes the partnership one of the most experienced in the industry to date.Adam Holland, Marine Renewables Manager for McLaughlin & Harvey, noted: “The execution of this Collaboration Agreement shows our continued commitment to developing practicable and cost effective projects using innovative new technologies, with the aim of bringing the tidal and wave energy industry in achieving commercial reality. We believe that SeaRoc’s excellent track record in a diverse range of offshore installations together with the added value of its consultancy wing, has the potential to even augment our rapidly growing capabilities, providing us with the capacity to deliver larger and more technically challenging projects, now and in the future.”Eric Briar, Managing Director of SeaRoc, welcomed the partnership, commenting: “This collaboration offers huge potential for delivering construction and O&M projects to the renewables industry. With McLaughlin & Harvey’s long history of civil and marine engineering, and through their experience of successfully deployed tidal energy installations since 2006, they have consistently shown innovation in their chosen deployment methodologies. With SeaRoc’s decade of offshore renewable energy project support and track record of marine energy installations, using our capabilities in vessel management and offshore operations, we can combine with McLaughlin & Harvey’s novel approaches to provide a very significant offering to the industry. We see an immediate opportunity to join forces on the installation of tidal and wave projects, where developers are facing real challenges that we can help them to overcome. Building on the success of our contracting arm for the offshore wind industry, we can apply some very real and extensive project experience to issues facing this rapidly maturing market.”For more information on SeaRoc visit www.searoc.comFor more information on McLaughlin & Harvey visit www.mclh.co.ukContact details:For SeaRoc, please contact Alex Woodward: alex.woodward@fredolsen.co.ukFor McLaughlin & Harvey, please contact Adam Holland: adam.holland@mclh.co.uk
SeaRoc appointed Principal Contractor on EDF Energy Renewable’s Teesside Offshore Wind Farm – First Turbine InstalledJanuary 2013International marine engineering company SeaRoc has been appointed Principal Contractor to oversee the completion of the offshore wind farm construction at TeessideOffshore Wind Farm on behalf of EDF Energy Renewables. The project has now also reached an important milestone with the installation of the project’s first turbine.On 1st January 2013, SeaRoc was appointed by EDF Energy Renewables as Principal Contractor to undertake the remaining planning, management and co-ordination of work on the project, involving the installation of the 27 WTGs and towers, TP energisation & cable terminations, marine coordination utilising in-house management tool - SeaPlanner, scour protection and array commissioning.Project Director Toby Mead commented: “In 2012 SeaRoc delivered a raft of installation projects across both Offshore Wind and Tidal sectors; to kick off 2013 with this key project puts a very definite marker in the sand for the future of the company”. The SeaRoc team will be assisted by staff from sister company, Natural Power, for the site management works.SeaRoc, on behalf of EDF Energy Renewables, and working closely with sister company Natural Power, has now completed the installation of the tower, nacelle and rotor blades of the first of the 27, 2.3MW wind turbine generators to be erected on the 62MW scheme.Commissioning tests on the new installation will be carried out ahead of electricity generation beginning in the forthcoming weeks. Installation of the turbines is being undertaken with the MPI Adventure, a six leg jack up vessel, owned by the Stokesley-based MPI Offshore.The wind farm, located 1.5km off the North East coast at Redcar, is the first UK offshore development undertaken by EDF Energy Renewables.Work on the installation of the remaining wind turbine generators continues and, allowing for periods where the weather conditions will prevent construction works taking place, it is expected that the erection of all wind turbine generators will be completed in Spring 2013.Christian Egal, Chief Executive of EDF Energy Renewables, said: “The installation of the first offshore turbine on our first offshore scheme is a landmark event for the company, supporting the expansion of our onshore wind farm capacity over recent years.”EDF Energy Renewables already has 21 operational onshore wind farms contributing 300MW of low carbon electricity in the UK. Including the Teesside scheme, a further 224MW of additional capacity is currently under construction.
SeaRoc strengthens its support to offshore renewable energy developments through new Dundee officeNovember 2012International marine engineering company SeaRoc has announced the opening of a further office in Scotland to support’s the country’s growing offshore wind farm and marine renewables industries. Located in Dundee, the new office opened on November 12th and houses a number of marine engineering experts, including David Wotherspoon who joins SeaRoc as Development Director.The new office is located in the exciting DundeeOne development, providing high specification and energy efficient accommodation for the new team. For Searoc, this location, on the banks of the Tay Estuary and immediately adjacent to the Port of Dundee, provides an ideal location from which to serve it’s growing offshore renewables client base within Scotland, as well as supporting developments in the rest of the UK and internationally.SeaRoc Development Director David Wotherspoon commented: “We are very keen to be sited closer to a number of key Clients developing projects offshore. We have the space to bring 12 new highly skilled jobs to the area and, having already recruited engineering and marine operations staff, we have no doubt the team will continue to grow further through 2013 and beyond. This new location for SeaRoc perfectly complements our Head Office in Chichester and recently opened Orkney office in developing our local presence with clients across the UK, and we will continue to look for opportunities to strengthen these relationships.”Dundee represents the company’s 3rd office, with Head Quarters in Chichester operating globally, and 2nd office in Orkney supporting the emerging wave and tidal market.For more information visit www.searoc.com
SeaRoc successfully install floating wind lidar for Garden State Offshore Energy – SeaZephIR® noted as ‘the future of offshore data collection’ for wind farms.November 2012International marine engineering company SeaRoc are delighted to announce the successful delivery and deployment of a SeaZephIR® product to Garden State Offshore Energy (GSOE), a US joint venture project between Deepwater Wind and PSE&G Renewable Generation.Garden State Offshore Energy is a planned utility scale project of approximately 1,000MW installed capacity, over 20 miles offshore due east of Avalon, NJ.SeaZephIR has been engineered and installed by SeaRoc to provide an autonomous, low-motion, tension leg platform with integrated wind lidar, allowing offshore wind resource assessments to be performed without the need of a fixed structure or traditional met mast. In addition to the ZephIR 300 wind lidar which provides wind speed and direction measurements from just ten metres (33ft) up to an impressive 200 metres (656ft) above installed position, the buoy measures motion, wave heights and is also equipped with a Class 1 cup anemometer and wind vane. The GSOE buoy has been named the New Jersey Offshore Research Device (NJORD).SeaZephIR has been developed to deliver finance-grade metocean data with a proven wind lidar on a stable tension leg platform, in a cost-effective and safe manner. The net result allows for effective and efficient development of offshore wind projects such as the GSOE project.Following a period of some 8 weeks validation off Block Island, USA, the tension leg buoy has been relocated to the New Jersey site to assist in the data collection for the owners of this completely newly designed structure. The validation tests demonstrated a 99% correlation between the SeaZephIR results from the NJORD and the results from Deepwater Wind’s fixed met mast located less than a mile away on Block Island. On 12th November, the NJORD was successfully deployed 23 miles off the coast of Atlantic City in southern New Jersey where it is expected to remain for up to two years to support GSOE’s planned offshore wind farm.Eric Briar, Managing Director at SeaRoc commented on the installation: “Further to prototype testing in 2011 with Garden State Offshore Energy, and combined with associated research and extensive marine experience, we have re-developed and matured SeaZephIR to the product delivered and an extremely safe, efficient and successful installation was completed in on the 12th November 2012. This is a very exciting period for SeaRoc and the companies involved in SeaZephIR. We have a product that is now engineered to a very high standard and we continue to refine the product where possible.Combining the ZephIR 300, a proven wind lidar system, with a stable device representative of a fixed platform provides the traceability required for gathering finance-grade wind data, essential in the development of offshore wind energy projects. The buoy itself is designed to survive in 1 in 50 year worst case metocean conditions, with a mooring system capable of being redeployed allowing SeaZephIR to become a roaming offshore anemometry device, as required, either around a single site or between multiple locations.”Deepwater Wind President Chris van Beek also noted: “The NJORD buoy, with its SeaZephIR technology is an important advance for the offshore wind industry. We validated the results of the system against our fixed met mast on Block Island, and the results were excellent. This technology is the future of offshore data collection."GSOE Vice President Rob Gibbs added: “GSOE is pleased with the successful deployment of the NJORD and looks forward to using this new but now demonstrated technology for assessing the wind resource off the coast of New Jersey. This is a great example of a public-private partnership between GSOE and the State of New Jersey, which provided critical grant funding for the NJORD.”hnology is the future of offshore data collection.”For more information visit www.searoc.com
SeaRoc expands in to new head office in Chichester, UKNovember 2012International marine engineering company SeaRoc have announced the location of the company’s global headquarters as Chichester, South East England, and with it, revealed plans to increase the organisations work force to 75 staff in 2013.Chichester, some 30 miles from former Brighton base for SeaRoc, has provided a substantial new property for the company spanning three floors and some 6000 sq. feet of multi-purpose office space.SeaRoc Managing Director Eric Briar commented: “For some time we have been looking for a new base to grow SeaRoc from over the coming years. Chichester is a strong winner with excellent transportation links to London and beyond and within good proximity of some relevant South Coast ports. Following the successful installation of the Narec anemometry hub last week we anticipate significant expansion of our OceanPod team to continue delivering offshore meteorological masts as the lead contractor. Combining this with a steady growth in all areas of the business, is leading us towards a very exciting 2013.”For more information visit www.searoc.com
SeaRoc successfully installs anemometry platform for Narec Blyth offshore wind demonstration projectNovember 2012Novel tripod installation in 37m deep waters to validate wind conditions for the largest independent offshore wind demonstration site proposed in the UK.The National Renewable Energy Centre, Narec, has completed the installation of an offshore research and anemometry platform, three nautical miles off the coast of Blyth, Northumberland, next to the nearest shore array of the proposed 100MW capacity Blyth Offshore Wind Demonstration Site.The platform has been fitted with the latest technologies for measuring wind resource, observing marine conditions and collecting marine life data. At a height of 103m above sea level, its meteorological mast is amongst the tallest planned for offshore wind in the UK and the data collected will validate conditions on the proposed demonstration site for next generation turbines up to 8MW.Andrew Mill, Chief Executive at Narec, said: “The installation represents a significant step forward in the realisation of the demonstration project, which has been designed to enable the commercialisation of the next generation of offshore wind turbines and their associated structures and electrical network equipment. This is the right time for manufacturers to provide assurance to investors in the sector by building up operating hours on their new designs in a realistic offshore environment.”The platform has been designed for a 22-year life and its installation on a tripod structure at 37m water depth follows the approach being taken for the installation of wind turbines in deep waters. As well as providing a benchmark for tenants to monitor the performance of turbines on the Blyth Offshore Wind Demonstration Site, it provides an open-access research facility to trial new technologies and processes intended to reduce the timescales and costs of the consenting process for offshore wind.Andrew adds: “To reduce the future costs of up-scaling offshore wind requires innovation through the whole process of design, manufacture, installation and operation of wind farms, particularly as we go into deeper water farther out at sea. Our North Sea demonstration site provides a microcosm of the environment in which the majority of UK Round 3 Sites will be built out in. We are providing a shop window in water depths ranging between 35m and 58m for tenants to prove the performance and durability of larger prototypes and early-series production models.”Tony Quinn, Operations Director at Narec, said: “The successful delivery and installation of the platform has required a concerted effort from all parties across the supply chain, including client team, stakeholders, professional advisors and contractors. Whilst this has necessitated a degree of commitment and dedication over and above the norm, it illustrates what can be achieved when a common aim is shared.”The contract for the installation of the anemometry platform was awarded to SeaRoc earlier this year. The structure’s 53m-high tripod foundation, weighing 535 tonnes, 60-tonne platform and a 25-tonne meteorological mast were assembled offshore after being collected from the manufacturers on the Tyne. SeaRoc developed an installation solution that was focused on risk mitigation and, working together with its subcontractors, ensured it was completed with zero incidents and accidents and to a very compressed schedule.Toby Mead, Operations Director at SeaRoc said that the importance of getting this installation correct and ensuring it was ready with an ‘operational status’ by the end of November 2012, has been a key driver for SeaRoc as the installation contractor: “I am very proud of my team and was happy to be dedicated to the project since June. We had responsibility to develop the complete works that would allow us to transport the foundation to quayside, full loadout and offshore installation of the foundation, three pin piles, grouting and full topside installation. This large tripod foundation had some non-standard solutions to enable its installation. Working with our subcontractors to ensure drilling and grouting operations would not delay our end date, we provided suitable redundancy including the very best in ROV solutions to successfully mitigate our risk where possible. To our knowledge it is the first time that the MPI Adventure, chartered by SeaRoc, has been involved in a tripod foundation structure installation and was operating in the deepest waters it has encountered to date.”Eric Briar, Managing Director at SeaRoc said; “This has been a challenging project that has allowed us to further build our construction business and focus on niche installations that require a range of disciplines and top quality offshore project management experience. We embarked on this installation, on behalf of Narec, in May 2012 building on our past year of offshore installations in the wind, wave and tidal sectors and aim to continue to offer these services taking on larger projects and reducing risks for our clients. Our Operations Director, Toby Mead, and the full SeaRoc team, with contractors, have resolved a number of technical issues working very closely with Narec and their officers to hit targets and deadlines and we look forward to continuing to work with them in 2013."Narec submitted an application to the Marine Management Organisation in March 2012 for consent of the proposed 100MW capacity Blyth Offshore Wind Demonstration Site and a decision is expected within 12 months. A competitive tendering process is also underway to select tenants for the proposed three arrays to demonstrate turbines up to 195m blade tip height. The private sector investment required to build out the site, if consented, will be circa £0.4 billion and the project aims to have the first turbines in operation in 2014.For more information visit www.searoc.com
SeaRoc charter MPI Adventure for Narec's Offshore Anemometry Hub InstallationSeptember 2012
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SeaRoc to provide full installation services on Narec's Offshore |