Ampelmann, the Dutch offshore access provider, is assisting with the construction of Equinor’s Hywind Tampen – the first commercial floating wind farm in Norway. An E1000 gangway was fitted to OSCV Siem Barracuda in early December and within the next six months, a second Ampelmann gangway will begin its operations on the wind farm.
“This is a milestone achievement for Ampelmann,” says Maichel van Nauta Lemke, Ampelmann’s Business Developer for floating wind. ”We are delighted to be able to take part in the construction of the largest floating wind farm in the world and we would like to thank both Siem Offshore and our end client, Equinor, for the opportunity to contribute to this project.”
Ampelmann’s gangways are well known in the industry for their hexapods that allow the system to compensate for motions in all six degrees of freedom. Because floating wind turbines are situated in deep water, further offshore, rough sea conditions exacerbate the difficulties of accessing floaters from vessels. Floating wind farms, like Hywind Tampen, require motion compensated systems that can provide consistent and reliable offshore access.
The E1000 is Ampelmann’s access solution for conditions like those at Hywind Tampen. It is ideally suited for work in variable sea states and to compensate for the divergent motions of vessels and floating turbines. Able to withstand waves up to 4.5m Hs, the gangway can convert into a crane within minutes and has a lifting capacity of one tonne. Having already made more than 270 successful landings at the wind farm in the last three months, enabled more than 1,600 safe personnel transfers and transferred over 81,000kg of cargo, the system has the proven its capacity to work effectively on floating wind farms, even during the winter months.
“We have considerable experience in the offshore energy sector,” Van Nauta Lemke says, “and we wish to contribute our expansive knowledge to this exciting and important new market. We are known as one of the pioneers of Walk to Work (W2W), and our trusted systems, specially trained operators and services provide safe, reliable and consistent support during offshore operations. The coming years will see the explosive growth of the floating wind market in Europe, Asia and the USA, and with this project we are gaining invaluable expertise in the field. We want to contribute our knowledge and experience as a global offshore access provider to this sector as it develops.”
