Aarsleff Concrete Working Platforms for Offshore Wind Foundations

November 10, 2020 | Renewables | Energy Facts Staff Writer | 3min

Concrete Work Platforms are since more than a decade an integrated and maintenance free part of foundations used for Offshore Wind Turbine Generators. The high strength concrete structure is designed to withstand impacts from waves and ensures safe working conditions. Furthermore is the direct cost of CWPs significantly lower compared to steel working platforms.

In 2007, Aarsleff developed this concrete working platforms – Instead of the traditional steel solution a platform in concrete was designed and since then the CWP has become a great success and is already used by the world leading OWF developer on more than 1,000 offshore wind foundations worldwide.

Aarsleff BIZ’s concrete factory in Swinoujscie, Poland, has started in 2007 to produce the 91 Concrete Working Platforms for the Danish Horns rev 2 Offshore Windfarm. Shortly thereafter 176 CWPs were produced for London Array Offshore Windfarm which until resent years was the biggest Offshore Windfarm in the world.

Since 2017 Aarsleff BIZ consistently supplies Concrete Working Platforms for various Offshore Wind Farm projects each year, mainly for the world leading developers in the Offshore Wind Business and completed 643 patented CWPs until today.

The OWFs using BIZ CWPs are located in the North sea in the waters of:

  • Denmark (Horns Rev 2 (2007) – 91 CWPs))
  • Germany (Borkum Riffgrund 2 (2017) – 36 CWPs)
  • Netherlands (Borssele (2019) – 35 CWPs & Fryslan (2020) – 89 CWPs ), and
  • England where the nowadays world’s biggest Hornsea Two offshore wind Farm is being constructed (Hornsea 1 (2017-2018) – 49 CWPs; Hornsea 2 (2019 – 2021) – 165 CWPs )

Aarsleff BIZ is also involved in the offshore wind market like USA where in 2019 they have delivered the first two platforms for a Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind Farm and Aarsleff BIZ has started communication with the Developers and EPCI contractors involved in upcoming Polish Offshore Wind farms to assure that a big amount of local polish content is fed into these exiting polish projects.

The third party certified factory is managed by inhouse specialists for health and safety, quality, concrete, survey, work supervisors and management and has all key subcontractors like for instance for concrete and reinforcement steel in their close vicinity which removes the risks of production interference and delays.

The transport of the Concrete Working Platforms on the BIZ factory is done by RTG and Shipyard trailers and the load-out is carried out by a floating crane.

The Platforms can be delivered by barge or coaster to any suitable marshaling harbour specified by the clients.
The batch quantity is optimized based on the platform and vessel dimensions and above all the clients project schedule requirements.

Aarsleff BIZ has – between 2007 and 2020 – produced and delivered 643 pieces of high quality Concrete Working Platforms according to project requirements and time schedules for offshore wind farms and aims to continue to supply these cost effective AND maintenance free platforms for the offshore wind industry.