Giant Chinese wind foundations set for Scotland's gigascale Inch Cape

Inch Cape Offshore Limited (ICOL) has signed capacity reservation agreements with two Chinese shipyards for the supply of supersize monopile foundations for the joint venture company's 1.1GW wind farm off Scotland.

ICOL's partners Chinese-owned Red Rock Power and Irish energy utility ESB booked capacity with Dajin Offshore Heavy Industry and Guangzhou Wenchong Shipyard Heavy Industry (GWSHI) to secure supply, fabrication and delivery of monopile foundations, according to a statement released by the joint venture company today (Tuesday).

The statement described Dajin Offshore as the largest private Chinese offshore wind fabricator of monopiles, transition pieces and offshore towers.

The Inch Cape project — which ICOL said is currently progressing toward full construction — will comprise up to 72 wind turbines sited 15km from the east coast of Angus in Scotland.

The monopiles are described as “designed for the latest generation of offshore wind turbines”, with outer diameters of 11.5 metres, a maximum length of 110m and a weight of up to 2,700 tonnes.

In September 2022, ICOL named Vestas as preferred vendor to supply 72 of the OEM’s V236-15.0 MW turbines in a deal that includes a 15-year operations and maintenance deal.

With yard deals in place, fabrication of the monopiles is due to commence in late 2024 with delivery to the project scheduled for late 2025, according to today’s statement.

ICOL is an equal joint venture between Red Rock Power, an Edinburgh-based subsidiary of Chinese group SDIC Power Holdings, and has has interests in four other onshore and offshore wind farm projects across Scotland and in Sweden.

SDIC Power was described as owner of a total installed capacity of nearly 38GW globally, almost 70% of which is generated from renewable energy projects.

Inch Cape was one of a clutch of offshore wind farm developments that earned offtake agreements under the UK's 2022 contract-for-difference (CfD) process.

The financial viability of Orsted's 2.9GW Hornsea 3 was also in doubt until last month when the Danish developer took a final investment decision to build the £8bn ($10bn) project.

The offtake agreements for Norfolk Boreas, Hornsea 3 and Inch Cape were obtained during the 2022 CfD process for rates of £37.35/MWh (at 2012 prices).

With delivery from the 1.1GW Inch Cape set for 2026/27, controlling costs will obviously be a key factor.

In its statement on securing the fabrication capacity for the monopiles, ICOL described Dajin Offshore as the largest private Chinese offshore wind fabricator of monopiles, transition pieces and offshore towers.

With the UK and the EU both in the process of introducing carbon pricing mechanisms for imports, Inch Cape also stressed that the Dajin yard has its own “clear goals” to achieve net carbon neutrality by 2035.

The statement added that Dajin is offering to transport foundations from China to overseas markets by developing its own fleet of large cargo vessels and is expanding its own capability to build XXXL monopiles with diameters of up to 16 metres, lengths of up to 150 metres and weight of up to 5,000 tonnes.

“In addition, Dajin is ready to contribute to European local content for offshore wind and for that is delivering secondary structures and electrical outfitting based on EU fabrication and supply chain," the ICOL statement continued.

The Guangzhou Wenchong shipyard group has seven yards and already includes XXXL monopiles, fully fabricated floating wind structures and transition pieces for both monopiles and jackets among its range of products, ICOL stated.