Spanish engineering firm Cobra Instalaciones y Servicios has signed a Front-End Engineering Design (FEED) contract with New York offshore wind project Empire Wind.
Under the agreement it will study the implementation of a solution based on Concrete Gravity Base foundations for the wind turbines.
The FEED contract started February 1st and will be completed in August 2021 for the 816MW site.
Empire Wind is being developed by Equinor and BP through their 50/50 strategic partnership in the US.
Cobra has been working with Spanish engineering firm Esteyco, designer of the ELISA Gravity Based Foundations.
They have been collaborating with Equinor on the Empire Wind project since 2019, starting with a contract for a concept study.
For this FEED contract, Dragados USA, a heavy civil work construction company with experience and presence in New York since 2005, has joined Cobra and Esteyco in 2020 as a local construction partner for this project.
Since February 2018, Cobra and Esteyco joined efforts through a long-term agreement to develop and commercialise their concrete offshore wind foundation technologies, which includes the ELISA Gravity Base bottom fix foundation.
This has already been prototyped and under operation with a 5MW turbine in the Canary Islands, and the TELWIND concrete floating technology.
Cobra is a global leader in the development, construction and O&M of renewables and conventional energy projects, and a growing player in the offshore wind market, offering exclusive technology, EPCI and O&M services.
Dragados is a world leading construction firm in large scale heavy civil infrastructure, marine, and engineering projects with a strong and consolidated presence on the east coast of the US and the New York/New Jersey area.
Esteyco is an engineering consultancy firm with more than 50 years of experience in the fields of infrastructures and architecture, and an international reference in the renewable energy sector.
Pioneers in precast concrete wind towers, Esteyco has entirely developed the ELISA and TELWIND technologies, both new disruptive solutions for the substructure of offshore wind turbines.