The WindFloat Atlantic project is constructing the first floating wind farm on continental Europe, and will generate a capacity of 25MW; equivalent to the energy consumed by 60,000 homes in a year. Being a floating wind farm, it is secured to the sea bed with chains, and so avoids complex and disruptive offshore operations that might be damaging to the environment and costly.
ALE was chosen by its client Coordinatora to undertake the project, due to its expertise in performing complex load-outs to tight deadlines, as was the case here. Other projects elsewhere in the business had seen ALE perform transverse load-outs of large structures; experience that would be vital.
Construction and assembly of the over 2,000t structure had taken place as planned at the Navantia-Fene shipyard. Transportation was then required over a distance of several hundred metres to the quayside, and ultimately onto the Heavylift vessel Fjord.
Several factors made this project particularly challenging. The load-out operation was defined as class 1, meaning strict time limits were in place; the operation was performed transversally, bringing obvious space limitations; the sheer size of the structure was also a factor, at 30m tall and with a distance of 50m between its columns.
