Van Oord in a consortium with Great Lakes Dredge & Dock (GLDD) has been selected to carry out subsea rock installation works in relation to the Empire 1 and 2 offshore wind farms.
BP-Equinor joint venture Empire Offshore Wind is developing the projects off New York, which will have a combined capacity of around 2GW.
Van Oord’s scope involves preparing the seabed with the placement of filter rock prior to the installation of monopile foundations.
This will be executed by the flexible fallpipe vessel Stornes.
GLDD will install armour rocks as a stabilisation and protection layer after the monopiles have been installed.
The collaboration between Van Oord and GLDD has been an important factor for winning this project, Van Oord said.
GLDD is building its own Jones-Act compliant fallpipe vessel.
This team offered Empire Wind a “competitive advantage in terms of experience, equipment usage, local content and regulations”.
Due to the geographical location of Empire 1 and 2 on the east coast of the United States, GLDD has ample access to rocks produced from domestic quarries.
The wind farms are planned for an area 32 km south of Long Island and will consist of up to 174 wind turbines.