Navaids chosen for Humber windfarm

Being developed by E.ON, construction has begun at the 24.8 sq/km site off the coast of East Riding UK, with the windfarm due to come onstream in 2015. The easterly and southerly boundaries to the 73 turbine site, which will produce 219MW of power, are bounded by the shipping channels leaving the Humber estuary. The northern boundary runs parallel to existing pipelines running into Easington.

The flexibility of Hydrosphere’s service was fully utilised, with five buoys initially rented while five bespoke buoys were being built. “Our rental facility provided a great short term solution for E.ON, said Hydrosphere MD John Caskey. “According to the windfarm consent, buoys needed to be onsite for four weeks before vessels were allowed to start work.”

In addition to the buoys, Jet 9000QI models with high visibility towers consisting of two East, two West and one South cardinal, Vega VLB-36 stand alone LED lights were also purchased from Hydrosphere.

The system incorporates iridium monitoring on each buoy, developed by Hydrosphere to provide peace of mind for windfarm operators. The system gives them the ability to check buoys have not drifted, the light is working and the power system is operating correctly.

The buoys have been deployed in water varying between 25m to 30m deep with moorings; chains, swivels and shackles, also supplied by Hydrosphere. Hydrosphere also supplied a basic set of spares.

The rental buoys were initially deployed by Briggs Marine, with Trinity House vessel THV Galatea later removing the rental buoys and deploying the permanent buoys.

Hydrosphere’s rental service was introduced to accommodate companies needing lights and buoys for short term projects and has proven popular with the company’s windfarm customers, including SCIRA, the developer of Sheringham Shoal Offshore Wind Farm. Earlier in the summer the company extended its rental of eight JET 9000 Q HV navigation buoys used to mark the site.

“Contractors often need temporary navigation aids for short term, project based deployments, marking sites while construction is underway, said John Caskey. “We’ve designed our rental service to be as flexible as possible for our customers, with a minimum rental contract of just three months.”

Manufactured by Mobilis, the JET 9000 buoys provide a robust and cost effective solution for offshore and deepwater applications, especially where high visibility is a must. As with all Mobilis buoys in the JET range, they are constructed from UV stabilised polyethylene components to withstand harsh sea conditions with colour retained within IALA guidelines for more than 15 years.