Wind Energy – Innovation
It looks like small UFOs have landed at Thyborøn Port, Denmark, but they’re not from outer space.
These are the reusable monopile foundation covers for RWE’s 1.1 gigawatt (GW) Thor offshore wind farm, located 22 kilometres off the west coast of Jutland in the Danish North Sea.
RWE has recently taken delivery of 36 innovative reusable monopile hard covers, sourced from the Dutch company Circular Covers. These covers will be used to protect the monopile foundations from the harsh conditions at sea until the turbine towers are installed next year. By deploying reused covers, RWE is once again demonstrating its commitment to sustainability and circularity.
Thor will feature 72 turbines, half of them with CO₂-reduced steel towers and 40 with recyclable rotor blades, both manufactured from Siemens Gamesa.
Usually, the covers are disposed of after use because they were tailor-made to a specific offshore project.
However, the covers from Circular Covers are made from glass fibre reinforced composite panels bolted to a steel frame, and the design allows the panels to be adjusted and reused for different sizes of monopiles.
It is expected that the individual panels of the covers could last 15 years and even more, depending on how often the diameter needs to be adjusted.
The 72 covers for the Thor project were previously installed at an offshore wind farm off the Dutch coast. RWE is the first company in the world to reuse these covers and give them a new lease of life. After their deployment at RWE’s Thor wind farm, the adjustable covers will be utilised at other upcoming offshore wind projects.
