Lidar services have been deployed for the Muir Mhòr floating offshore wind farm project off the east coast of Scotland.
Green Rebel, a Cork and Limerick based offshore survey service company, has successfully deployed its Floating LiDAR system which will remain in place for 12 months.
Muir Mhòr is a joint venture between Fred Olsen Seawind and Vattenfall located in the North Sea 70km off the coast of Aberdeen.
The floating wind farm is on track to be operational by 2030, subject to planning and grid infrastructure provision.
Green Rebel was awarded the tender to carry out the MetOcean survey, signing the contracts in November and deploying its technology in February.
The commencement of the survey is a key milestone for the Muir Mhòr project and the data collected will be used as part of the energy yield analysis and for engineering design of the wind turbine array.
The Floating LiDAR Buoy is designed to operate autonomously at sea and uses laser technology to profile the speed of winds at heights of up to 300m.
It also delivers data on waves, ocean currents and water quality.
The data captured is sent back to shore, where a team of specialists can interpret it at Green Rebel’s dedicated MetOcean base in Limerick.
The total height of the assembled buoy is the same as a two-storey house and weighs as much as 11 family cars.
It is currently operating in a part of the North Sea that is more than 70 metres deep.
The buoy weighs 15 tonnes and extends to 12 metres in height and the teams installed over 700 metres of mooring lines.
David Hinshelwood, project director for Muir Mhòr Offshore Wind Farm said: “The deployment of the Floating LiDAR and metocean instrumentation package is a big step forward for the Muir Mhòr Offshore Wind Farm project and we are pleased to be working with the offshore survey service innovators Green Rebel to mark this major milestone.
“This technology will gather a valuable dataset which will allow our project team to better understand the combined effect of winds, waves, currents and water quality – which has critical input in turn for the design of foundations, mooring systems and cables as well as planning and operational activities for various project phases.
“This milestone underlines our commitment to delivering a highly innovative offshore wind project which is on schedule to generate electricity in 2030 – putting the UK on track to meet its target of 5GW of floating wind by 2030.”