New surveys starting at RWE’s Norfolk Vanguard offshore wind sites

A nearshore geophysical survey and a drop-down video survey are starting this month at the two Norfolk Vanguard offshore wind sites, located 50 to 80 kilometers off the coast of Norfolk in the UK, where RWE plans to build offshore wind farms with an installed capacity of 1.4 GW each.

The environmental drop-down video (DDV) survey will be performed within the Vanguard East offshore site by GEOxyz using one of its Geo Ocean survey vessels. The operation is scheduled to start on or around August 13 and take twelve days.

At the Norfolk Vanguard West site, DEME, with G-tec as the subcontractor, is expected to kick off a nearshore geophysical survey on or around August 23. The work will take three days and will be carried out using the survey vessel Faraday.

Norfolk Vanguard East and Norfolk Vanguard West are two of the three projects RWE acquired from Vattenfall in March 2024, the third being Norfolk Boreas. The three projects total 4.2 GW in installed capacity and have already secured seabed rights, grid connections, Development Consent Orders and all other key permits. 

Norfolk Vanguard West and Norfolk Vanguard East are the most advanced and have secured the procurement of most key components.

Last year, RWE carried out geophysical and geotechnical site investigations at all three Norfolk offshore wind sites.