Friede & Goldman Ltd. (F&G), a company known for its offshore oil drilling rig designs, has announced the BargeRack, "a revolutionary solution to the feeder concept of offshore wind turbine installation."
"BargeRack is tapping F&G’s unmatched 72-year history to bring a safe and simple method of installing up to 20MW wind turbines using a self-elevating vessel," F&G, a company which has seen more than 120 offshore rigs built to its designs, said in a statement sent to Offshore Engineer.
According to F&G, BargeRack eliminates motions between the self-elevating installation vessel and the feeder's vessel.
"This removes the need for complicated, expensive, and heavy motion compensation equipment. Uptime is increased due to much larger allowable weather windows. Furthermore, due to the simplicity, existing United States infrastructure can be used which eliminates the need for purpose-built feeder vessels and/or expensive and complicated feeder barges," Friede & Goldman said.
The solution uses a trussed rack fitted to the transom of a relatively small self-elevating vessel.
The feeder barge, with its turbine component cargo, is floated over the submerged rack. Once the feeder barge is secured, the self-elevating vessel uses its onboard jacking system to elevate, while also lifting the feeder barge completely out of the water.
From this position, the main crane installs the wind turbine components directly from the stationary feeder barge onto the turbine foundation.
After turbine installation, the self-elevating unit jacks down into the water, submerging the rack, and re-floating the now empty feeder barge.
Friede and Goldman is a world leader in the design of self-elevating vessels and jacking system equipment, F&G explained.
Thumbnail and Video Credit: Friede & Goldman