DONG Energy awarded DEME’s subsidiary Tideway cable installation contract for the Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm. PES investigates to find out why and introduces readers to the ‘Living Stone’.
Early June this year, Tideway BV, Breda, the Netherlands, a subsidiary of the Belgian dredging, environmental and marine engineering group DEME, was awarded a cable installation contract (Transport and Installation) by DONG Energy for the world’s largest offshore wind farm, Hornsea Project One.
Tideway will deploy DEME’s newest, multipurpose vessel (MPV), ‘Living Stone’ for this project. This Dynamic Positioning 3 (DP3) vessel is the most advanced subsea cable installation vessel in the world. It is currently being built by the Spanish shipyard LaNaval near Bilbao, Spain.
The ‘Living Stone’ will have two turntables below deck each with a capacity of 5,000t making a total capacity of 10,000t. There is also the possibility of a third carrousel above deck with an additional load capacity of 2,000t.
Delivery of the state-of-the-art ‘Living Stone’, which is equipped with dual fuel engines, is scheduled for April 2017. LNG will be the primary fuel. This means the ‘Living Stone’ will be amongst the cleanest installation vessels in the world, having a Green Passport and the Clean Design Notation, which is awarded to owners and operators who choose to design and operate their vessels in an environmentally sustainable manner. The official christening of ‘Living Stone’ took place in Bilbao mid-September 2016.
