Scour protection innovation off Germany

The contract is to provide an innovative solution to the problem of seabed scour on the, soon to be constructed, Amrumbank West Offshore Wind Farm, which will be built 20 nautical miles offshore in the German North Sea comprised of eighty, 150m high, 3.6MW Siemens turbines with monopile foundations.

Peter Madsen Rederi A/S, based in Aarhus, has been contracted to place some 50,000 tons of sand filled geotextile bags around the 80 turbine foundations to protect against potential seabed scour arising from tide and current action.

The design of the scour protection is revolutionary and this is the first full scale use of sandbags instead of conventional scour protection with stones. This innovative use of geotextile bags will give substantial cost savings in comparison to traditional stone protection and offers certain technical advantages.

Both E.ON and Peter Madsen believe this method will become an important solution to the problem of scour and will be adopted for many other projects in the future.

Production of sandbags by Peter Madsen will begin this year and placement at sea for the scour protection is planned to run from spring 2013 until autumn 2013.

Peter Madsen has a long history of involvement with the offshore wind sector and this will be the thirteenth project since working on the Danish Rødsand 1 OWF in 2002. The contract is a result of a long term strategy and developed expertise in the offshore wind sector, especially on scour protection where the company has already carried out work on some 400 offshore foundations.