What is happening in Edinburgh’s Leith?
From Calton Hill to Arthur’s Seat, residents and visitors to Edinburgh can see some tall yellow structures at the Port of Leith, and have been asking ‘what are they and why are they there?’
Since October last year, all the Inch Cape project’s different foundation components have been arriving at the port, though none as visible as the three-legged lattice tower structures known as jacket foundations.
Over the past eight months, heavy transport vessels have delivered the all the components – monopiles and their partnering transition pieces, pin piles and jacket foundations – that will support the project’s 72 wind turbines at the North Sea site. A total of 14 shipments have arrived and been offloaded at the port.
From the arrival of the components, the Forth Projects team and its suppliers such as George Brown and Sons, have been responsible for their marshalling. This work is the offloading, storage and loading out of the foundation components and also includes removing the grillage used to secure the components to the delivery vessel deck during transport.
Completions work is also taking place at the Leith site. Around 100 people, primarily from Global Energy Solutions, are undertaking this work which is essentially readying the transition pieces and jackets for offshore installation, carrying out dozens of tasks such as bolting, inspections and affixing installation guides.
The smaller yellow tower structures also visible at the port are the transition pieces that sit on top of the monopiles after installation and act as the interface between the foundation and the wind turbine tower. These have a boat landing for the crew transfer vessels to push on and allow wind turbine technicians to climb up and into the tower during the project’s operational phase.
Inch Cape will use a combination of 18 jacket and 54 XXL monopile foundations to support its wind turbines offshore. The two designs allow for the differing water depths, which range from 34 to 64 metres across the 150 square kilometre offshore site.
Since December, residents and visitors in Leith will have seen two heavy lift vessels – Les Alizés and Alfa Lift – arriving into the port to collect the components then sail to the North Sea site where they install them. All the monopiles are now installed and the installation of the transition pieces is ongoing.
Once the transition piece installation is complete, the Alfa Lift will start collecting the pin piles for installation using a template called a pile installation frame. There are three pin piles per jacket foundation, one for each leg. Finally, for this scope of work, the 18 jacket foundations, which will be fixed to the seabed with the pre-installed pin piles, will be installed.
All the foundation components will have left Leith early in the new year, but in the meantime there is a temporary new skyline in Edinburgh and a visible reminder of Scotland’s ongoing energy transition.
