North Star Renewables’ vessels to support offshore wind market in the UK
Published by Bella Weetch,
Editorial Assistant
Energy Global,
Hybrid daughter craft vessels designed to support the offshore wind market are to be built in the UK through a new multi-million pound deal.
Hybrid daughter craft for offshore wind designed by North Star Renewables and Chartwell Marine will be built in the UK.
Aberdeen headquartered North Star Renewables has confirmed that the contract for its fleet design, developed in collaboration with Southampton based naval architects Chartwell Marine, will be awarded to a UK shipyard in September 2021.
The initial contract for two newly designed hybrid vessels will be built to complement North Star Renewables’ growing service offshore vessel (SOV) fleet and will be delivered in 2022 and 2023. The hull form, equipment selection, innovation features and comfort are all focused specifically to suit the demands of offshore wind operations.
Daughter craft are used by the offshore wind industry to safely transfer technicians between the in-field SOV, where they live while working offshore, to the wind turbines to undertake routine or remedial maintenance. They are also used to support trips to shore and making deliveries in-field.
In addition, daughter craft also provide essential emergency safety and rescue cover. This is a core 24/7 service that North Star Renewables has been delivering to the oil and gas sector in the North Sea for the past 40 years. The firm, which employs 1400 personnel across the UK (including 140 deck and engineering cadets enrolled in its three-year training programme), has one of the world’s largest daughter rescue fleets, with 63 vessels on its books, often operating twin daughter crafts from a single vessel. It also has the largest wholly owned British fleet providing infrastructure support and currently services more than 60 locations and mobile installations in the North Sea.
Over the last two years, the company’s teams in Newcastle, Lowestoft and Aberdeen, have worked in close partnership with Chartwell Marine to produce a world-class high performance, comfortable and sustainable daughter craft vessel design. It introduces hybrid propulsion into the daughter craft market, whilst setting a new standard for safe operations with an increased sea state operability at wave heights of up to 1.7 m Hs – 33% higher than anything else currently available. The vessel also carries green technologies to reduce carbon emissions, configured for further improvements in green technologies as the sector evolves.
Once the daughter craft are delivered, they will be operated by North Star Renewables’ experienced crew members. The company’s entire fleet is maintained in-house by its team of technicians based in Aberdeen and Lowestoft.
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Energy Global's Summer 2021 issue
The Summer issue of Energy Global features a varied spectrum of in-depth technical articles detailing recent projects, future projections, and technological advancements in the renewables sector, from companies including CEWEP, Enel Green Power, Turboden S.p.A., Cornwall Insight, and more.
Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/wind/20072021/north-star-renewables-vessels-to-support-offshore-wind-market-in-the-uk/
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