An essential component of the mooring system is reliable anchors, which can be accurately installed with driven piles using IQIP’s piling spread. The complete spread includes pile handling and lifting equipment which places the pile securely into a subsea pile guiding frame. Placed on the seabed, the frame supports, levels, and orientates the pile, ensuring that the mooring line connection is pointed towards the wind turbine before the Hydrohammer smoothly installs it into the seabed.
The advantages of this technology will become even more evident, predicts de Vos, as floating wind farms increase in size, making mooring solutions and floater designs specifically tailored to reduce installation time, costs, and associated risks essential. “I think that the fact that driven piles can withstand both vertical and horizontal loads from the floating wind turbine, even from multiple directions, will make them part of the solution. It means less piles could be strategically positioned in the wind farm to keep multiple floating wind turbines stationed, allowing for a cost-reducing shared mooring system.”
Overall, the emerging floating wind market still has an ocean of open opportunities to be explored. “But no matter which solutions we’ll see,” says de Vos, “IQIP is ready to participate.”