Divers reach decade of offshore wind farm work
Falmouth Divers have provided diving services to the Blyth wind farm in the UK and also Horns Rev 1 in Denmark.
UK based diving and submarine cable contractor Falmouth Divers Ltd is celebrating its first 10 years in the offshore wind sector.
The company, founded over 30 years ago, has an extensive history in submarine cable projects and was selected to supply all the diving services for the development and installation of the first offshore wind turbines to be installed in the open sea. They were also the first offshore wind turbines in UK waters.
Falmouth Divers work ranged from environmental surveys, works to the foundations and J tubes, cable pull-ins and shore end landings, through to the construction of land ducts and joint bays.
Following these works at Blyth in 2000, the company was then selected to supply the diving services for the cable installation on the world’s first large scale offshore wind farm at Horns Rev 1 in Denmark. This project required the infield array cables to be installed at a fast and economical rate, as the cost of the floating plant and lost production of the wind farm would have been a massive disincentive to future wind farm developments if it could not have been achieved.
Many of the installation techniques used today were developed and refined on this project as the size and scale of the wind farm, at 80 turbines, allowed for many methods to be trialled and timed.
Falmouth Divers were then contracted to supply the diving services on the first full scale wind farm in UK waters at North Hoyle. This project involved further development of ideas, methods and technology, including supporting new cable burial and installation techniques.
Steve Roue, Falmouth Divers operations director said, ‘Over these ten years we have seen a lot of changes and ideas, some good and some not so good, but we feel design and planning should tap into the existing knowledge base at a earlier stage to prevent many of the time and cost overruns that have affected many of the projects to date.’
After 10 years the company is still very active in the wind farm supply market. One recent project involved a turnkey replacement of an export cable that included all works offshore and on land, diver surveys and vessel supply at the Thanet Offshore Wind Farm.
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