Solstad ƶijϻ said Thursday its Far Sapphire vessel has completed the installation of the inter-array cable for the TetraSpar floating wind turbine in Norway.
The TetraSpar floating foundation, fitted with an offshore wind turbine, was recently towed from Denmark and installed at a test site offshore Norway, with cable installation planned at a later date. The project has been described as the world’s first full-scale demonstration of an industrialized offshore foundation.
In a social media post on Thursday, Solstad said that its Far Sapphire vessel had installed Inter Array Cable from Zefyros to the newly installed Tetra Spar floating wind turbine at a 200meter water depth.
The floating wind turbine is located next to the old Hywind demo site that has been in operation since 2009.
TetraSpar is now connected to the existing 22kV grid interface point to Karmøy. TetraSpar has an installed draught of approximately 65m and is fitted with a 3.6MW wind turbine, with a rotor size of 130m.
The TetraSpar Demo project is developed by Stiesdal ƶijϻ Technology, TEPCO Renewable Power, Shell, and RWE.
The TetraSpar foundation concept is the modular “building block” arrangement: each foundation is assembled from tubular steel modules, most of which are common to all configurations. Manufacturing takes place in factories using industrialized methods, and their assembly near the site as well as towing are measured in days or weeks, instead of months, the companies involved have said.
Another particularity of TetraSpar Demonstrator is its stability provided by a keel deployed 50m below the floater.
Homepage photo credit: Solstad ƶijϻ