Asso.subsea, a specialized global contractor in the submarine cable industry, has signed a contract with the balance of plant contractor Van Oord to provide boulder clearance and pre-trenching services for more than 80 km along the inter-array cable routes of Sofia Offshore Wind Farm in the UK, owned by RWE.
Sofia Offshore Wind Farm, one of the largest single offshore wind farms in the world, is located on Dogger Bank in the central North Sea, approximately 195 km off the UK’s north east coast. It will have a total installed capacity of 1.4GW and will consist of 100 14MW wind turbine generators.
Asso.subsea will utilize its new vessel Athena, one of the most capable DP3 Trenching Support Vessels in the market, featuring a newly installed 170t A-Frame on the stern to launch the Asso Multi-functional Plough for the boulder clearance and pre-trenching operations. In addition, the AssoGrapple II ROV boulder grab will be mobilized for removing individual boulders.
The marine operations are scheduled to be executed between Q2 and Q3 2023.
Mr. Angelos Tziotakis, Director of the Technical Division of Asso.subsea, commented: “We are delighted to partner with Van Oord for the Sofia Offshore Wind Farm project. The unrivalled experience accumulated by Asso.subsea in seabed preparation operations will certainly be an added value for the project.”
ASSO is particularly active in the Offshore Wind sector. The company has successfully completed several projects such as Borwin 3, Dolwin 3, Veja Mate, Deutsche Bucht, Global Tech 1, SeaMade OWF, Kriegers Flak and is currently involved in the development of various French offshore windfarms.
