On October 15, CIMC Raffles, a subsidiary of CIMC Group, delivered the Norse Wind wind turbine installation vessel to DEME, a leading Belgian offshore engineering company, in Yantai as scheduled. This milestone underscores China’s sustained leadership in the global high-end market for offshore equipment manufacturing.
It is understood that the Norse Wind is the first vessel in the NG20000X series and the world’s first fully DC-powered wind turbine installation sister vessel. The vessel’s fully DC-powered design reduces the number of cables required and equipment weight while minimizing space requirements and enhancing compatibility. This approach lowers costs and energy consumption, improves efficiency, and offers environmental benefits.
As a key project in Europe’s clean energy development, the Norse Wind project series of vessels are also equipped with a DP2 system, which has powerful deck loading and lifting capabilities. They can simultaneously transport and install many types of wind turbines, meeting the demanding offshore platform operations requirements of Europe’s North Sea.
Additionally, compared to previous ship designs, the Norse Wind project features a 3,200-ton main crane and the latest battery hybrid propulsion technology. For the first time, the battery system achieves the breakthrough capability of fully covering the function of a single main engine, reducing carbon emissions per megawatt installed by over 70%.
It is worth mentioning that the successful delivery of the NorseWind, one of the most automated wind turbine installation vessels currently available, has received high praise from both the shipowner and the classification society. Both parties recognized CIMC’s professional technical capabilities and high-quality, on-time delivery performance. Next, the wind turbine installation vessel will be deployed at the NordseeCluster wind farm in Germany, delivering more clean energy to the world.
In the future, CIMC Group looks forward to continuing to work with industry partners to jointly create more core equipment and benchmark projects for the global marine engineering industry and clean energy development, and write a new blue chapter in achieving the global “carbon neutrality” goal.