Van Oord has completed the transport and installation of all 21 monopiles at Iberdrola’s Windanker offshore wind farm, a key milestone in the construction of the project. This achievement involved the largest monopiles Van Oord has ever installed, made possible by earlier upgrades to its heavy lift installation vessel Svanen, which is now equipped to manage next-generation offshore wind monopile foundations.

Van Oord’s scope of work included loading the monopiles at the fabrication site in Spain and transporting them to the Port of Rønne, Denmark. Manufactured by a joint venture between Navantia and Windar, the monopiles rank among the largest ever installed by Van Oord, with a diameter of 10 metres, lengths of 70.6 to 86.6 metres, and weights of up to 2,145 tonnes. From the port, they were lifted using MTC cranes and towed by two tugs to the installation vessel Svanen.

Van Oord used specialised techniques to protect marine life from harmful noise levels during monopile installation. Bubble screens created a curtain of air bubbles around the work area to absorb and reduce sound waves, while a Hydro Sound Damper net provided extra noise reduction.

In line with Van Oord’s ambition to achieve net-zero emissions, renewable fuel was used to power the compressors for the bubble screens, cutting greenhouse gas emissions for this activity by up to 86%. This sustainability initiative was made possible through a joint effort with Iberdrola, Van Oord and Hydrotechnik Offshore (HTO), who shared the costs of using renewable fuel.

Building on this effort, in partnership with Skyports Drone Services, long-range drone technology was deployed as part of an innovative pilot project. The goal was to transport items from the shore to the offshore installation site, reducing reliance on supply vessels and the project’s environmental footprint. Van Oord is now the first marine contractor to perform Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone flights to vessels in a wind farm under construction.

Located in the German Baltic Sea, around 45 kilometres northeast of the island of Rügen, Windanker will add 315 megawatts of capacity to Iberdrola’s Baltic Hub, supplying enough renewable energy to power approximately 315,000 households.

Van Oord’s remaining scope will be delivered in two phases. The first involves transporting and installing 21 transition pieces, scheduled for completion by December 2025. This will be followed in the first quarter of 2026 by the installation of the inter-array cables, part of Van Oord’s EPCI scope, which involves interconnecting the turbines and offshore substation and supporting energy transmission throughout the wind farm.