Cadeler secures loan to fill WTIV hole
Cadeler has signalled confidence in the offshore wind sector by securing another €30 million to upgrade its installation vessel fleet.
As the offshore wind industry grapples with finding enough installation vessels to put wind turbines in the seabed, one of the world’s biggest vessel builders has borrowed another €30 million to boost its offering.
Cadeler, the Danish supplier of the giant vessels (WTIVs), says it has secured another €30 million on top of the €50 million unsecured HSBC corporate facility it already has in place.
The term loan will be used ‘particularly in the construction of P Class and A Class new-build vessels, and the upgrade of existing O Class vessels with new cranes to install next-generation wind turbine generators’, Cadeler says.
“We are very pleased with the support and the shared vision of the potential in Cadeler and the offshore wind market. We are well placed to meet the increasing global demands and to execute the largest and most complex offshore wind installation projects,” said CEO Mikkel Gleerup, who has previously spoken to Maritime Journal about the unsustainability of increasingly large wind turbines.
Last week, Cadeler was reported to have laid the keel of a vessel equipped to install 20MW wind turbines, a big leap from the largest turbine to be deployed so far in Europe by GE Wind Energy, a 13MW ‘Haliade-X’ version installed at the UK’s Dogger Bank wind farm.
The next largest is a prototype by Vestas, which will stand 280 metres tall, have a blade length of 115 metres and can generate 16MW.
Mingyang Wind Power is currently working on an even bigger 22MW turbine, which will have a rotor diameter (blade tip to blade tip) of 310 metres.
Cadeler’s fleet of wind farm installation vessels numbers 10, according to its website, with another six due to be delivered by or in 2026.
