Major Component Exchange Campaign at Nordsee One Offshore Wind Farm

The ARGE N1 Joint Venture including the companies, SAL Renewables, OWS Off-Shore Wind Solutions GmbH and Wind Multiplikator GmbH are pleased to announce that work has commenced for the major components exchange campaign at the Nordsee One Offshore Wind Farm in Germany.

The campaign that will see 44 rotor shaft bearings of the installed 6.2M126 wind turbines being exchanged at the Nordsee One Offshore Wind Farm located in the German Bight, approximately 32 km north of the island Juist, has commenced and is expected to finish sometime in September 2022, depending on weather conditions.

The ARGE N1 is working closely together with the Northland Power service team but has full turnkey responsibility of the campaign. This is the second time the ARGE N1 has been awarded by N1 to perform major component exchanges at the Nordsee One offshore wind farm. In 2021, the Joint Venture performed 10 main bearing exchanges, including the repair of the main components at the OWS facilities in Emden, Germany.

For the 44 rotor shaft bearings this time, the dismantling and mounting takes place by OWS at its Emden facilities again.

The ARGE N1 partner companies have gained significant experience over the last 10 years, performing more than 130 major component exchanges and repairing several of them. The OWS facilities in Emden with direct quay access are ideally located and have great indoor opportunities for the optimal repair and storage of main components, especially for offshore wind farms. The offshore work is being performed with the Jack-Up vessel Thor, which has recently changed ownership to Harren and Partner and is now fully in the control of the ARGE N1. This means, the ARGE N1 has direct control of two Jack-Up's and can offer redundancy.

Heiko Felderhoff, MD of Harren & Partner and SAL Renewables, explained: "This is a great opportunity for the joint venture to show its turnkey capabilities to the wind industry. After the purchase of the Wind Lift I and now the Thor, we are very pleased with this partnership that has enhanced our services and brought together very experienced companies of the offshore wind industry."

Michael Munder-Oschimek, MD of OWS, said: "The project is the culmination of a lot of hard work from the ARGE N1 and Nordsee One. We are very pleased that the work has now commenced and will take advantage of our setup in Emden with direct quay access, a 450t gantry crane, large storage areas, main component overhauling facilities and a 24/7 control room perfect for MCE and MCR solutions."

Nils-R. Vetter, MD of WM, commented: "We are excited to use the experience we have gained in managing MCE and MCR projects with our partners and to perform another project in close cooperation with the N1 team and with clearly defined performance indicators in time, quality and HSE. The preparation and now the execution of the campaign is running right on schedule."

Ulrich Strutz, Commercial Manager at SAL Renewables, added: "This project highlights that our strategy to focus more on wind power has been correct and going forward this will be a cornerstone of our business as we expect to see significant projects here."