Jan De Nul’s Connector is one of several vessels to have been assigned to the Formosa 2 project (source: Jan De Nul)
Jan De Nul Group has completed installation of 47 jacket foundations, 188 pin piles, four export and 47 inter array cables on the Formosa 2 offshore windfarm in Taiwan
The company said it expects to bring its EPCI scope on the project to completion in the coming weeks.
Jan De Nul subcontracted EEW KHPC for the fabrication of 188 pin piles, some with a weight of over 270 tonnes and a length up to 79 m.
In 2020, the piles were transported from the fabrication yards in South Korea and Malaysia to the marshalling harbour in Taichung, Taiwan. The heavy-lift vessel Seaway Yudin commenced installing the piles in water depths up to 55 m, with the final pile installed 22 August 2022.
During installation activity, Jan De Nul also managed and monitored underwater noise levels and monitored marine mammals in compliance with environmental restrictions and permits.
Jan De Nul ordered the jacket foundations from Sembcorp Marine Ltd and Saipem Fabrication. With a height of up to 91 m and a weight of more than 1,600 tonnes, they are among the largest and heaviest jackets in the offshore wind industry to-date.
From October 2021 to July 2022, three heavy transport vessels delivered the jackets to the marshalling harbour for storage and final preparation before installation, which commenced April 2022, using the heavy-lift vessel Bokalift 1.
The final jacket was installed 26 August 2022, completing the foundation fabrication and installation scope.
In 2020, Jan De Nul subcontracted the manufacturing of 34.5 km of export cables and 87 km of inter-array cables to LS Cable. Jan De Nul’s shallow-water cable-laying vessel Willem de Vlamingh and multipurpose vessel Connector picked up, transported and installed the cables in 2021 and 2022, respectively. Both vessels also acted as trenching support vessels to bury the cables with a jet trencher on certain sections of the cable routes.
Jan De Nul’s trailing suction hopper dredgers Niña and Francis Beaufort performed pretrenching in the harder sections.
The four export cables were pulled through the drilled HDD pipes nearshore in 2021 and were finally joined onshore with the land cables at the transition joint bays. Installation of the 47 inter-array cables commenced in May 2022 and was completed 1 September.
In the coming weeks, the offshore support vessel Orient Constructor, which is owned by local partner DFO, will continue facilitating walk-to-work access for the teams finalising terminations of the cables.
The offshore support vessels Grand Canyon 2 and Connector will complete the remaining cable burials and stabilisation work by the end of September.
