8 SHIPMENTS, 4 VESSELS – ONE GOAL

One of the latest windfarms to undergo construction is the Formosa 1 offshore windfarm near Miaoli, off the west coast of Taiwan, where several SAL vessels have been involved with shipments of tower sections, blades and nacelles.

SAL Heavy Lift, CEE member in Germany, were assigned a total of eight shipments for the Formosa 1 Phase 2 windfarm development.

“In total four of our vessels were involved in the project with eight shipments”, says Jan-Peter Esbensen, Senior Commercial Director at SAL in Denmark, “our Type 176 vessels MV Regine, MV Anne-Sofie and MV Trina were chartered for three shipments of blades and nacelles. On top our Type 161A vessel MV Paula was assigned to transport tower sections within an additional five shipments.”

MV Regine completed the first shipment of five nacelles, measuring 20 × 7.9 × 10.56 metres and weighing 378 tons each, and an additional twelve blades, measuring 75.42 × 3.97 × 5.34 metres and weighing 34 tons each from Cuxhaven, Germany and Aalborg, Denmark to Taichung, Taiwan.

Subsequently MV Anne-Sofie transported another five nacelles and nine blades to Taichung and MV Trina successfully completed the series with another five nacelles and twelve blades. But this is not where the job ended: The Type 161A vessel MV Paula was also involved in the project and offered a tower section shuttle service from Phu My, Vietnam to Taichung, Taiwan.

In total she transported 60 tower sections with a total of four tower sets (twelve units) per shipment. Each tower set consisted of a tower bottom (179 tons each, 22.21 × 6 × 6.33 metres), a tower mid (144 tons each, 24.52 × 6 × 6.33 metres) and a tower top (160.5 tons each, 37.28 × 6 × 6.33 metres). In combination the tower sections are larger than the fuselage of a Boeing 787.

The 120 MW Formosa 1 Phase 2 windfarm will comprise 20 Siemens Gamesa 6 MW wind turbines installed on monopile foundations some six kilometres off the west coast of the Miaoli district in the Taiwan Strait. The wind farm is an extension to the existing Formosa 1 Phase 1 and is scheduled to be operational in 2020.

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