Jan De Nul heavy lift vessel set for work on Scottish offshore wind farm

Belgian marine contractor Jan De Nul will provide its 2023-built heavy lift vessel Les Alizés to transport and install the monopile foundations on the Inch Cape wind farm offshore Scotland.

The wind farm will comprise 72 turbines sited in the North Sea off the Angus coast with a total installed capacity of 1080MW. The project is fully backed by UK government contracts for difference.

Inch Cape is developed by an equal joint venture between ESB and Red Rock Renewables. It recently reached a financial close and is now progressing into construction.

When complete, the wind farm will generate enough green energy to power the equivalent of half of all Scottish homes. It will also be the UK’s first offshore wind farm to install 15 MW Vestas turbines.

Engineering and project preparation for the transport and installation of the monopile foundations are already progressing and will begin in late 2025.

The monopiles are up to 110 meters long and weigh up to 2,500 tonnes, equal to the weight of about 2,500 average cars. The monopiles will be loaded at a newly built quayside at the entrance to the Port of Leith in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Jan De Nul will deploy the vessel at Inch Cape as its third consecutive assignment. In December 2024, the vessel finished installing 107 monopile foundations on Gode Wind 3 and Borkum Riffgrund 3 wind farms off Germany. This spring, the vessel will continue working on the installation of 72 monopiles on RWE’s Thor farm off Denmark.

The heavy lifter is on a long-term charter to RWE, however, the German utility has already ensured the vessel could be made available to other developers during downtime between its projects.