The Met Office has signed weather forecast service contracts for the 332MW Nordsee One and 402MW Veja Mate offshore wind farms in the south west of the German Bight area of the North Sea.
Nordsee One, which is jointly owned by Northland Power and RWEI Innogy, will be using Safesee, a web-based forecast system and Premium Tab & Graph, a forecaster reviewed five-day marine forecast of site-specific weather and warning information.
It will also use Port forecasts and SafeVoyage – a forecast for planning vessel’s routes in open water and moving personnel and equipment safely and efficiently.
The project is due for completion in April 2017.
Veja Mate – owned by the Highland Group (Siemens Financial Services and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners) – will use the Met Office’s services during its inter array cable installation from August 2016 until March 2017.
It will use Premium Tab & Graph and SafeVoyage from Hartlepool to the construction site, plus forecasts on request for additional shipping routes during the cabling.
Met Office head of European business development Hayley Wallbank said: “We are delighted to have been selected to work in close partnership with Nordsee One and Veja Mate to provide timely and accurate forecasts which will help facilitate confident, safe decision-making during the construction of these large offshore wind farms.”
Image: first monopile headed for Nordsee One offshore wind farm (RWE)
