Blue Pilot project promises to push down cost of offshore wind farm installation

The Blue Pilot project will test a new type of pile driver, designed to reduce the cost and underwater noise associated with the construction of offshore wind farms.

Conventional hammers used for installing offshore foundations use a steel ram that hits the pile to drive it down into the soil. This steel-on-steel impact results in high stresses in the pile, and also creates underwater noise that can impact marine life.

The new Blue Hammer pile driver was developed by Dutch technology company Fistuca, a spin-off from Eindhoven University of Technology.

The project partners, which also include the UK’s Carbon Trust Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA), E.ON, Statoil and Shell, among others, claim it could lead to savings of up to euro €33-40m over the lifetime of a 720MW offshore wind farm, or a levelised cost of energy reduction of €0.9-1.2 per MW/h.

The Blue Hammer consists of a large water tank containing an open combustion chamber, according to Jasper Winkes, founder and managing director of Fistuca.