Parkwind engaged Empire Engineering to manage the detailed design of the monopile foundations for the OHVS and WTG structures.
Northwester 2 is the seventh windfarm of the Belgium Coast and represents a €700 million investment to bring renewable energy to 220, 000 Belgian homes. The part consists of 23 monopile WTG structures supporting MHI Vestas V164 turbines and 1 OHVS delivering approximately 220 MW of power.
Supporting Parkwind
Empire initially joined the Parkwind design team with three engineers, greatly increasing the capability and experience base of the Client. By utilizing the Empire team, the project was able to produce the initial documentation to act as the input to the detailed design process which otherwise might not have been completed and would have introduced delay to the project.
Empire engineering supported the project with the primary and secondary steel design of the WTG and OHVS foundations, whilst also providing support on geotechnical, metocean, corrosion protection, and driving related topics.
A long lasting relationship
Having fostered industry wide relationships, Empire was able to provide an open and constructive dialog with the Designer to ensure design efforts were focused on delivering optimum value for the Client.
Empire managed the certification process and provided technical assistance on a number of particularly challenging topics which had the potential to significantly delay progress.
In addition, Empire Engineering provided support and management of the novation process to the EPCI contractor. This involved coordination of the design activities to include additional requirements imposed as part of specific installation methodologies.
Empire support continued through the fabrication and installation phases, allowing any technical queries to be quickly and effectively resolved.
As a result of the competence and reliability of the Empire team, the Parkwind engineers had the confidence and ability to shift focus from the Northwester 2 project to get a head-start on future Parkwind developments.
Key project summary
Client
http://www.parkwind.be
Key services
Engineering oversight, Foundation design, Project delivery
Wind farm
Northwester 2
The results
Empire Engineering provided the knowledge and man-power to ensure the project got off to the right start, which then gave the confidence for handover of design management to free-up Parkwind resource to concentrate on future projects.
As a direct result of our work, an operational windfarm that has been installed and operated without any negative feedback relating to design items.
The project was successfully guided through a challenging certification process.
Additional support provided by the broader Empire team on technical matters allowed for informed decision making without over-reliance on the designer.
