The state-of-art vessel has arrived at the Port of Gdynia – the Svanen – a heavy-lift vessel from Van Oord’s fleet designed for the installation of offshore wind farm foundations. This particular vessel that will start the first offshore wind farm construction in the Polish part of the Baltic Sea – Baltic Power – at the beginning of 2025. This is a joint project between ORLEN Group and Northland Power, to be completed in 2026.
The arrival of the first installation vessel in the port of Gdynia marks an extensive mobilisation campaign ahead of the start of work on the offshore section of the Baltic Power construction project. Svanen will be responsible for installing the monopiles, the main foundation element for 76 of 15 MW turbines and 2 offshore substations. The monopiles will be overlaid with transition elements (TPs) connecting them to the turbine and offshore station structures. The monopiles that will be used for the construction of the Baltic Power farm are up to 100 m long, with a diameter of approximately 9 m and a weight of up to 1,700 tonnes. Due to their massive size, the transport of such components is only possible by sea. Special tugboats will be used to deliver the structures to the farm area from the transhipment port. Baltic Power, as the first project of its kind in Poland, will make use of the already available port infrastructure in the Baltic Sea, pending the availability of Polish ports and offshore wind farm installation terminals.
Van Oord’s Svanen entered service in 1991 and has been serving offshore projects since 2005. It has been upgraded several times as the turbine sizes of offshore wind farms have increased. Since then, more than 700 monopiles have been installed across Europe. With the upgrade carried out in 2023, the size of the main crane was increased from 120 to 125 metres and the lifting capacity from 3,000 to 4,500 tonnes. Such modifications were necessary for the heavy-lift vessel to be able to install the components needed to erect foundations of 15MW turbines. Baltic Power will be the first project served by the vessel after its refurbishment and one of the first in the world to receive 15MW turbines and monopiles taliored for them.
Contracting specialised installation vessels is a major challenge for offshore wind farm developers. Only few such vessels are available in Europe and, in addition, in the Baltic, the fleet transfer itself through the Danish Straits is another challenge. Such vessels are booked with shipowners several years ahead for a strictly limited period of time.
The Baltic Power offshore wind farm, developed by ORLEN and Northland Power, is the most advanced offshore wind project in Poland and the only one in the construction phase. Work is progressing according to schedule and the planned farm will integrate approximately 1.2 GW of power into the national energy system in 2026. Baltic Power will cover about 3% of Poland’s energy needs, thereby reducing national CO2 emissions by about 2.8 million tonnes per year.
