Maersk Supply Service launches Wind Installation Vessel
Maersk Supply Service, a new company under the A. P. Møller Holding umbrella, has launched a Wind Installation Vessel (WIV) that it claims is 30% faster than conventional jack-up vessels.
The company says the WIV will be stationed at one wind farm to carry out successive installations rather than travelling back and forth to ports, while tugs and barges ferry turbine components to the installation site.
“These will be delivered to the WIV using a patented load transfer system that will enable safe transfer of cargo,” it says, listing four key steps:
- The barge docks at the WIV in the field
- A locking system engages to stabilise the barge
- A tray with turbine components is elevated off the barge and the locking system retracts to release the barge
- The tower, nacelle and blades are assembled using the standard method.
The method would make the vessel Jones Act compliant, which is a kind of insurance for the next term of US presidency, when the next president might not be so averse to offshore wind farms.
All main engines, Maersk Supply Service says, are Tier III compliant and can run on biofuels. The vessel has a lifting height of 180 metres above deck, and is designed to install the next size of wind turbine, some 20MW, and generators. The 145m x 83m vessel has accommodation for 100 persons in single cabins.
The company structure is fairly complicated, with A. P. Møller Holding buying Maersk Supply Service from A. P. Møller-Maersk two years ago, making the Maersk Supply Service effectively a sister company of Maersk Offshore Wind.
