G&G anchors Riffgat Wind Park
The Riffgat Offshore Wind Park will be constructed in the North Sea, 15 km northwest of the German island of Borkum (near the border with The Netherlands). Thirty wind turbines will be built within a 6 km² area that will provide 100,000 families 108 megawatts of green electricity. Riffgat will be more operational by the summer of 2013. Total cost of the project is 400 million euro. All installations will be safely anchored at a depth of 18 to 23 meters by G&G International.
Our steel foundation structures consist of monopiles anchored in the seabed on the one side, and transition pieces which connect the monopiles to the wind mill masts. G&G produces the monopiles (70 m long, 650 ton) in partnership with the Spanish constructor Idesa. The transition pieces (32 m long, 250 ton) are being built on our site in Willebroek. The transition pieces are complex and have different integrated performance requirements: platforms for vessels to moor, for electric and mechanical devices, and for entrance to the tower.
All of these huge steel constructions will be delivered in one piece in Vlissingen by May-July 2012, via special transports. Each of these sixty huge pieces is extraordinarily durable and designed to last at least 23 years in the extremely demanding and corrosive North Sea environment. While the Riffgat Project is a milestone in the history G&G, it is just the beginning of our conquest of the growing market of green energy suppliers. Decisive factors in the awarding of the contract to G&G were its ability to deliver rapidly, our capacity, our proactivity, experience, international reputation, and our flexibility regarding the needs of the project developer. In spite of the huge size of the Riffgat contract, G&G certainly has repeatedly demonstrated its capacity, means, and the determination to attract new orders, both for the mega engineering and production of foundation structures for offshore windmills, as well as for massive pressure vessels.