Base port for Nordsee One wind farm: Buss Orange Blue Terminal in Eemshaven given green light by Senvion

The Buss Orange Blue Terminal and the international wind turbine manufacturer Senvion have signed an agreement for the Nordsee One offshore wind farm. As part of this major project, Buss will take care of all services upstream of and at the Dutch terminal: from planning, transport and interim storage on the terminal premises to pre-assembly and subsequent delivery of the components to the quayside.

The Nordsee One wind farm which, once completed, will comprise 54 wind turbines covering an area of 41.3 square kilometres, is situated around 40 kilometres to the north of the island of Juist. As a result, the location of the Orange Blue Terminal is also perfect. Numerous customers have chosen the Hamburg Buss Group's terminal in previous years as their base port for the handling of major offshore wind projects in the North Sea.

“This year, we have already successfully managed two offshore wind projects via the Orange Blue Terminal. The green light for Nordsee One marks a fantastic end of the year for us, and is also affirmation of our work,” says Martin Schulz, Head of the Buss Offshore division.

The project's planning phase is set to be completed before year-end. From February 2017, the total of 378 main components - comprising 61.5 metre-long rotor blades, up to 118 tonnes of tower segments and 350 tonnes of nacelles - will be gradually delivered to the Orange Blue Terminal. “To transport the components to the storage area, we are using our self-propelled modular transporters (SPMT). This state-of-the-art modular vehicle with 24 axle lines and its own propulsion system helps us with the challenging job of parking the large components in the warehouse”, says Schulz. Around 80 square metres of the 250,000-square-metre Orange Blue Terminal will be used for storage, handling and pre-assembly. Buss will pre-assemble the rotor stars at the storage facility, while the 65-metre-high towers will be set up directly at the quay edge using heavy load platforms with a capacity of 20 tonnes per square metre. Here, the installation vessel will jack itself up and load the prepared components.

The wind farm is scheduled to be ready for operation by August 2017.