The international renewable energy consultancy will provide offshore wind expertise across a range of areas in order to deliver technical assurance for stakeholders in the project.

The offshore wind team at GL Garrad Hassan boasts an unrivalled breadth of technical expertise and for SMart Wind its experts will provide technical due diligence in relation to the assessment of structures, and analysis of the risk management and layout design processes.

SMart Wind's General Manager, Chris Hill commented: "After a strong competition GL Garrad Hassan emerged as our preferred consultant for the role of Independent Engineer for the first two projects in the Hornsea zone. Its offshore team has significant expertise in helping to deliver key offshore wind projects across Northern Europe and its technical understanding provides a firm basis on which to make confident decisions. We began our environmental surveys in early spring and are making steady progress towards bringing the first 500MW project to construction by 2014."

The 'Hornsea' project is scheduled to deliver 4,000MW of offshore wind power capacity by 2020, making it an important step in the UK's move away from conventional power generation to a secure low carbon energy future.

Ian Bonnon, head of offshore wind engineering at GL Garrad Hassan, said "The exciting prospect of projects such as those at Hornsea are exactly why the staff at GL Garrad Hassan came into the wind business and we are delighted to continue our long-running support of the team developing 'Hornsea'."

In December 2009, the SMart Wind consortium, led by Mainstream Renewable Power and Siemens Project Ventures (SPV), a division company of Siemens Financial Services, was awarded a contract to develop 4GW of wind farms by 2020 as part of The Crown Estate's Round 3 offshore wind farm programme.

SMart Wind will develop projects in the "Hornsea" zone, comprising 4,735 square kilometres off the UK's Yorkshire coast. Hornsea is one of nine zones to be developed in the seas around Great Britain as part of The Crown Estate's Round 3 programme, and with a total planned installed capacity of 32GW this is enough to meet a quarter of the UK's electricity needs.

The contract for Hornsea was signed in London on December 22, 2009. Siemens Project Ventures and Mainstream Renewable Power developed a vertically-integrated strategy which will take a modular approach to project design, development and delivery.

Key facts on the zone - Hornsea (Zone 4)
+ The Hornsea zone will provide enough electricity to meet 4% of all electricity demand in the UK and power approximately 3 million homes.

+ The UK goal for renewable electricity generation is approximately 30%. Hornsea's offshore generation will account for approximately 12% of that target.

+ The width of the Hornsea zone is approximately equivalent to the width of the UK from Liverpool to Hull.

+ The total zone area is 4,735 km".

+ The zone lies between 34km and 190km off the Yorkshire coast.

+ Water depths across the zone are predominantly between 30 and 40m, with maximum depths to 70m.

+ The zone is adjacent to the River Humber, 200km south of Newcastle and 75km north of The Wash.

+ The Humber estuary is triangulated by three main population centres, Hull to the north, Grimsby to the southeast and Scunthorpe to the southwest.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News