Sandbag scour protection for windfarms

This is one third of the final requirement. Since the award of the contract in September 2012, Peter Madsen has set up a production line to fill bags for scour protection on the 80 monopile turbines at Amrumbank.

The production plant, situated at the Danish port of Rømø, is now filling and stitching over 500 bags per day. These are Secutex Soft Rock non-woven sand containers, delivered flat from Naue Geosynthetics in Germany.

Marine sand to fill the bags is dredged from an aggregate site off Esbjerg and boughtdaily to Rømø by suction dredger for offloading onto the quayside. Here the bespoke production facility weighs batches of sand for each bag, fills and then stitches the bags closed. Completed bags are then stockpiled and covered for protection from sunlight and the weather, ready for placement in Spring 2013.

This is the first full scale use of bagged scour protection in the offshore wind sector and could pave the way as an important alternatives to rock armour on offshore windfarm sites throughout the North and Baltic Seas as well as UK waters. Client for the works is E.ON Climate and Renewables.