ESVAGT signs 15-year wind farm service deal

The company will build a new Service Operation Vessel (SOV) to fulfil the15-year contract with turbine manufacturer Vestas, which is supplying the turbines to wind farm developer Ecowende, a joint venture between Shell and Eneco.

The newbuild will be the sixth purpose-built SOV for Vestas in a partnership that has been working together since 2010.

“Vestas has been one of our key partners in developing and refining our SOV concept,” said chief strategy and commercial officer Søren Karas, with Vestas. “This new contract not only underlines our shared ambition of continually pushing the envelope on efficient wind farm operations, it also cements ESVAGT’s position as the largest owner of build-to-contract SOVs.”

The vessel will be a battery hybrid SOV in what ESVAGT says is a new compact design. ESVAGT has more than 40 vessels in its fleet.

The wind farm, which is due to be commissioned by 2026, will include a ‘bird corridor’ within its lay-out, “increasing the hub height to create more vertical space for birds as well as integrating bird and bat detection and deterrence systems into the turbine design”.

Vestas’ wind turbines across the globe amount to 173GW of power generated, the company says, in 88 countries.