Photo source: DEME Group via LinkedIn
On 15 April, DEME announced that Orion had completed the monopile installation at the Scottish offshore wind farm Moray West and “started its voyage across the Atlantic Ocean back to the United States, heading to its next project in Virginia”. The vessel has already been deployed in the US offshore wind market, having worked on the installation of the offshore substation and monopiles on the Vineyard Wind 1 wind farm off Massachusetts.
According to AIS data available online, Orion left the Port of Invergordon on the morning of 15 April and is expected to call the Port of Halifax on 24 April. From there, the heavy lift installation vessel is scheduled to arrive at the Port of Norfolk, Virginia, in late April, and start preparing for the installation of 176 monopiles at Dominion Energy’s project site located some 43 kilometres (27 miles) off the coast of Virginia.
DEME secured the work on the 2.6 GW US project in 2021 when Dominion Energy selected the DEME-Prysmian consortium as the Balance of Plant (BoP) contractor in charge of the transportation and installation of the foundations and the substations, and the EPCI services for the inter-array and export cables for Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, set to become the largest commercial offshore wind farm in the US.
During the CVOW monopile installation, Orion will be using the same equipment the vessel was fitted with for the work on the 882 MW Scottish offshore wind farm.
