RWE Innogy has contracted a Korean shipyard to build a special purpose offshore construction vessel. The contractor, Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME), will build this special offshore wind turbine construction vessel for about EUR 100 million, with the first vessel to be completed in 2011.

Computer rendering of the offshore wind turbine installation ship (showing three wind turbines on deck).

RWE is building its own construction ship in order to overcome the bottlenecks in the supply chain in modern wind energy industry. The vessels are going to give the company an advantage over other companies in terms of shorter delivery time and easier and less costly installation. RWE is going to be using the new ships for offshore wind construction in the North Sea, but will use them in other locations later.

These are the first ships of this kind in the world. They are capable of transporting multiple wind turbines, the largest currently available on the market. The ships will have 109 meters in length, and 40 meters in width, so they can transport four multi-megawatt turbines in a single run. The ships can perform installations in water depths of more than 40 meters.

The company has plans for two offshore wind farms in the German North Sea – North Sea East (295 MW) and Innogy North Sea 1 (960 MW). A third large wind farm is planned off the Welsh coast – the Gwynt y Môr wind farm (576 MW).

[source: RWE Innogy]