Van Oord orders green cable-laying

Van Oord orders green cable-laying vessel

VAN OORD HAS ORDERED A NEXTGENERATION CABLE-LAYING VESSEL. THE VESSEL WILL BE DELIVERED FROM VARD IN NORWAY AND EQUIPPED WITH THE LATEST SUSTAINABLE TECHNOLOGIES. THIS SECOND CABLE-LAYING VESSEL WITHIN THE VAN OORD FLEET WILL BE FULLY OPERATIONAL IN 2023.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF VAN OORD. The new vessel has been designed with a focus on ‘green’ in order to reduce the carbon footprint during operatons and port standby. Apart from the possibility to run on biofuel, this hybrid vessel has future fuelready engines with built-in fexibility to antcipate e-fuels. Director Markets & Communicaton Robert de Bruin explains, “Developments in fuel are in full swing and it is impossible to predict the fuel of the future. This new vessel will last twenty to thirty years, however we have to decide on these investments right away, so we can be prepared for all kinds of fuels.”

Not a standard vessel

Compared to Van Oord’s frst cable-laying vessel Nexus, the new ship difers mostly in terms of sustainable technologies used, her large batery pack, the shore supply connecton, and a state-of-the-art energy management system. This sustainable setup will result in a more energy-efcient vessel and will reduce CO2, NOx, and SOx emissions. The design for these parts of the vessel is the result of the close cooperaton between Van Oord and VARD. The design for the cable-laying secton on board is, however, mainly an efort by Van Oord’s in-house design department. Mr De Bruin explains, “It will not be a standard vessel, as a cable-laying vessel is never standard. About eight years ago, we started to keep the constructon, new building and feet management of these types of vessels – including installaton vessel Aeolus and the cable-laying vessel Nexus – under our own management. Our engineers were responsible for the design of the deck layout, carousels, and automaton for this cable-laying vessel.”

SPECS

Ship type Length Beam Draught Flag

Cable-laying vessel 130m 28m 6.6m Dutch

Apart from the possibility to run on biofuel, this hybrid vessel has future fuel-ready engines with built-in fexibility to anticipate e-fuels. Offshore wind is now Van Oord’s core business.

Offshore wind started as a niche market for us, but it is now our core business, accounting for 30 to 50% of our turnover.

Increase in megawatts

Its intelligent cable laying control system, capacity, and automaton will be a further evoluton from Nexus. The new DP2 vessel will be equipped with not one, but two carousels; one below-deck cable carousel and a second carousel on deck, with a total cable-carrying capacity of 8,000t versus 5,000t on Nexus. “In 2016, we carried out the Gemini project, an ofshore windfarm in the Dutch coastal waters with 150 wind turbines with a capacity of 4MW each. We are currently, together with RWE, preparing the constructon of the Sofa ofshore windfarm with 14MW turbines. That’s more than triple! This new vessel with far more capacity is in line with this development”, Mr De Bruin elaborates.

The vessel will be mainly deployed on interarray grid and export cables of ofshore wind projects, including the installaton of high-voltage direct current cables. Van Oord’s highly innovatve cable trenchers can also be operated from this vessel. Van Oord at present has two cable trenchers: the Dig-It and the Deep Dig-It. These are socalled ‘Tracked Remotely Operated Vehicles’ (TROVs) that drive unmanned across the seabed and create a deep trench for the cables by liquefying the seabed. At the same tme, the trencher inserts the cables into the trench and reseals them into the seabed. The Deep Dig-It is one of the largest and most powerful of its kind and can bury cables more than fve metres deep in very hard soil. The trenchers are currently interchangeable within various projects.

Core business

Van Oord’s investment in this new green cable-laying vessel shows the company’s

Van Oord’s frst cable-laying vessel Nexus.

According to Mr De Bruin, the offshore wind market is not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, more players are entering the market.

confdence in the ofshore wind market and the strategy to strengthen its leading positon. The company was an early adaptor, with its frst actvites in this market taking place in 2002. A substantal investment programme followed from 2013 to 2018, including the constructon of both Aeolus and Nexus. “It was clear to us that this market would grow”, says the Director of Markets & Communicaton. “Ofshore wind started as a niche market for us, but it is now our core business, accountng for 30 to 50% of our turnover. Four large-scale projects are already planned for the next three years.”

Van Oord prefers to operate as a main contractor, which means that the company is responsible for the full scope: from the installaton of the turbines and the foundaton of the monopiles to laying the export cables on the seabed. “With this new vessel, speed and efciency will increase enormously, which is very useful in large projects. There are also a lot of projects in which we do not act as an EPC, but where we have to arrange transport and installaton.”

Paris Agreement

According to Mr De Bruin, the ofshore wind market is not afected by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, more players are entering the market. This is one of Van Oord’s drivers to contnuously reinforce its market positon by investng in state-of-theart sustainable technology. “We are a marine contractor with many assets, so our CO2 footprint is certainly out there. But with each investment we make, we prove to meet the intermediate steps of our commitment to reduce our CO2 emissions and become carbon-neutral by 2050, in line with the Paris Agreement. The investment for this new green cable-laying vessel demonstrates our commitment to net-zero emissions.”

i. vanoord.com