World’s deepest wind turbine jacket installed at Seagreen

Seagreen wind farm, the joint venture between SSE Renewables and TotalEnergies has pushed its own yardstick even further into the sea with the installation of the world’s deepest wind turbine foundation.

The foundation, or ‘jacket’ as is the industry term, was transported to the project site on a barge operated by main contractor Seaway 7 where it was met by the Saipem 7000 – the semisubmersible crane vessel which is used to lift each of the 2,000-tonne turbine foundations into place.

The installation of the jacket means Seagreen has now topped its own record from October 2022, when a previous foundation was installed at a depth of 57.4 metres (approximately 188 feet). The deepest foundation has been installed at a depth of 58.6 metres.

The significant milestone also marks the installation of the 112th jacket at the 114-wind turbine wind farm. The final wind turbine foundation is expected to be installed later this week.

Each foundation will support a Vestas V164-10 MW turbine. First power was achieved in August 2022 with the offshore wind farm expected to enter commercial operation later this year.

When complete, the 1.1GW wind farm will be capable of generating around 5,000 GWh of renewable energy annually which is enough clean, secure, sustainable electricity to power more than 1.6 m UK homes.