AXYS Technologies, Canada, has announced that three TRIAXYS wave and current buoys were selected by Partrac, UK, as part of its metocean support services contract for the Rampion offshore wind farm. Partrac has been contracted to manage the supply, deployment, maintenance and delivery of metocean monitoring buoys throughout the wind farm’s construction phase.

The buoys were selected because of their ability to measure both waves and 3D water column profile currents, meeting the requirements for reliable, robust data provision, according to AXYS.

Real-time wave, current and sea surface temperature data is transmitted to the secure cloud-based geo portal, AXYS-APS. The Rampion team accesses their data through the AXYS-APS website daily to inform safety critical operations, such as heavy lifts, vessel to vessel transfers and operational planning on the Rampion construction site.

“AXYS is very pleased to be supplying TRIAXYS wave and current buoys to Partrac so they can support safe operations during construction of the Rampion wind farm,” said Graham Howe, director of sales for Europe. “TRIAXYS buoys are designed and purpose-built to supply real-time operational data for large scale construction projects and they have a considerable track record over the last 15 years of accurate and reliable data delivery.”

The Rampion offshore wind project is being developed 13 kilometres off the Sussex coast in the UK.

DONG Energy, Denmark, has appointed Fugro, the Netherlands, to perform offshore pre-construction surveys at the Walney Extension offshore wind farm in the Irish Sea off the coast of Cumbria, UK.

The pre-construction and engineering survey will provide detailed information to the Walney Extension project team, including additional geophysical data to ensure the seabed is clear of obstructions, including unexploded ordnance (UXO) from the Second World War.

Fugro will use three of its specialist vessels including the 41-metre Fugro Helmert, which will survey the main wind farm site. The RV Discovery and Fugro Valkyrie will also be deployed at the wind farm site as well as on the export cable route.

“Carrying out geophysical surveys is an important step before we can safely begin offshore construction,” said Andrew Cotterell, DONG Energy’s programme director for Walney Extension. “We are delighted to be working with Fugro on this phase of our programme.”

Nick Simmons, deputy geophysics business line manager at Fugro EMU, UK, added: “We are looking forward to applying our specialist skills and resources in UXO detection at this significant site and are pleased that our extensive experience continues to contribute to Fugro’s strong relationship with DONG Energy.”

The 660-megawatt Walney Extension offshore wind farm is expected to be fully commissioned in 2019, at which time it will be the biggest offshore wind farm in the world, surpassing the 630-megawatt London Array offshore wind farm off the UK’s Kent coast which was commissioned in 2014 by DONG Energy and its partners.

Subsea IMR provider N-Sea, the Netherlands, has been awarded a new contract with Galloper Offshore Wind Farm Ltd (GWFL), a joint equity partnership between RWE Innogy, Germany, the UK government’s Green Investment Bank, Siemens Financial Services, Germany, and Macquarie Capital, Australia.

The contract for pre-construction unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance works commenced in April 2016 and includes UXO risk management, target investigations and clearance on the Galloper wind farm, off the coast of Suffolk, UK.

Expected to run for between three and six months, the project sees the Siem N-Sea multi-support vessel utilise a WROV to investigate potential UXO targets within the array areas and export cable corridor. N-Sea’s dive support vessel Neptunus will also undertake similar tasks in shallow water areas.

To complete the clearance works, N-Sea has sub-contracted Ordtek Ltd, UK, Modus Seabed Intervention, UK, and Ramora, UK.