Page 42: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Jul/Aug 2023)

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HEAVY LIFTERS DECK MACHINERY & CRANES

To facilitate easier installation, Huisman invested in 162.5 meters.

a big Skyhook crane in its facility in China, where the The Voltaire has been designed to install the offshore company builds the LECs – it builds them in Europe, wind turbines of the future, with turbines over 270 meters too - and, when convenient, it can install the crane on a high and blades 120 meters long. The vessel will soon start vessel there. installing giant 14MW turbines at the Dogger Bank wind farm offshore the UK, which will, once fully completed, be

Vessel Owners Want it Bigger the world's largest at 3.6GW.

What do offshore wind turbine installation vessel opera- Also, Dutch frm Van Oord, in November 2021, or- tors call for these days, when it comes to Huisman's LECS? dered a 3,200t Huisman LEC, designed to be able to in- “What they generally need, or looking for these days, is stall turbines of up to 20MW, for its also newly ordered, bigger. And bigger not only in safe working load, but also 175-meter, methanol-power jack-up vessel Boreas.

bigger in hook height. And that's typically represented by "This crane will be the largest Leg Encircling Crane that the length of the boom of the crane. So, a 140-meter boom Huisman has developed to date in terms of lifting capac- used to be a very long boom in 2020, but these days people ity, boom length, installed power, and technical features," are contracting us for booms of 155-meter boom length, Huisman said at the time. The Boreas is expected to be and they're looking at more,” Van Veluw says. delivered in 2024.

For example, the OEDigital.com archive shows that in In April 2023, Huisman won a contract from offshore

November 2015, jack-up owner Seajacks, today owned by wind installation contractor Havfram Wind for the de-

Eneti, took delivery of the Seajacks Scylla jack-up instal- livery of a 3,000mt+ Leg Encircling Crane for its second lation vessel, at the time dubbed „the world’s largest and NG-20000X Wind Turbine Installation Vessel.

most capable installation jackup vessel to date.“ The vessel The LEC will be outftted with a 155-meter boom and featured a Huisman 1540-tonne leg-encircling crane, and will have a lifting height of approximately 180 meters

Seajacks said at the time, “it can handle XL monopiles, above deck.

jacket foundations, and is able to transport an impressive We asked Van Veluw if these cranes could go even big- number of the 7 and 8MW turbines that are currently [in ger, and if there was a limit somewhere.

2015] available in the wind market.” “We are indeed looking at an even bigger version [of an

Since those times, turbines have grown bigger, and with LEC],” Van Veluw says, adding that the company has a them, the need for bigger cranes and vessels. model ready for a 5000t LEC version.

In 2020, Fred. Olsen Windcarrier ordered a 1,600mt “It has to be seen in conjunction with the total vessel.

Leg Encircling Crane, capable of installing foundations So one of the tricky things with the vessel is the jacking and “all known next-generation offshore wind turbines,” system. We've also started looking into jacking systems with an illustration shared showing that the vessel could ourselves. We have a full-scale demonstrator in our facility install a 12MW wind turbine „of the future.“ This crane in Schiedam, which is open for evaluation by our clients was installed on an existing vessel, extending its lifetime. as well. And we have seen that bigger cranes need bigger

But how things have changed since then, and how quick- jacking systems.“ ly, show the recent LEC orders Huisman has received, with

LECs ranging from 2200t to over 3000t lifting capability. “10MW is easy“

Earlier this year, Huisman shipped the 2,200mt leg en- Global energy industry intelligence group Rystad said circling crane to the Keppel AmFELS shipyard in Browns- late in November 2020 that the offshore wind industry ville, Texas, for integration on the Charybdis, the frst would, as early as 2024, face a shortage of WTIVs capable

Jones-Act compliant WTIV. of installing 10MW+ turbines, and that, at the time of that

Last year, Huisman's LEC 3200t crane was installed report, there had only been four WTIVs capable of install- on Jan De Nul's Voltaire jack-up, breaking the record for ing 12MW+ turbines.

the world's largest installed LEC. Jan De Nul's spec sheet “[Today,] the 10MW one is easy,“ Van Veluw said, add- of the vessel claim's a maximum crane lifting capacity of ing that most of the Huisman recent LEC orders we men- 3,200 t, with a maximum lifting height above deck of tioned earlier were capable of installing 15MW turbines at 42 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM