CHC Group has signed a contract with DONG Energy to provide aviation services for the first phase of DONG Energy’s Hornsea Project One offshore wind farm.
Hornsea Project One will be the biggest windfarm in the world, capable of supplying clean electricity to well over one million homes. It will be built 120 km off the coast of Yorkshire, UK, and helicopters will be used to transport workers and equipment both during the construction and operational phases.
CHC, with its European head office in Aberdeen, is a leading provider in the oil and gas industry. Working with Uni-Fly as a sub-contractor, CHC will deliver the six -year deal covering the construction phase as well as the first five years of operations and maintenance of the wind farm.
This includes a transfer service to take people from shore to the wind farm, and also smaller helicopters to transfer people and tools between the turbines and substations.
A combination of Leonardo AW139 and AW169 helicopters, to suit the different phases of the project, will begin flying out of Humberside heliport from April 2018.
Both the services and operations for this contract will be based from Humberside, contributing to the expansion and development of the service base and surrounding area.
Duncan Clark, Senior Programme Director at DONG Energy said: “Hornsea Project One will be the first windfarm with a capacity over 1GW, dwarfing the current largest, London Array at 630MW. The great distance from shore means we have to do things differently for Hornsea Project One, we can no longer use crew transfer vessels to take people to and from the wind farm each day.” (Source: CHC)