China Merchants Heavy Industry (CMHI) has launched an offshore wind installation vessel that has already secured work at the giant Dogger Bank offshore wind project in the UK, which when completed will be the world’s largest built so far at 3.6GW.

The vessel, Alfa Lift, was built for Norway's Offshore Heavy Transport (OHT) and is scheduled for delivery in the next few months after equipment testing and commissioning.

The unit, which has a crane-lifting capacity of 3,000 tonnes, has already secured its maiden contract for transportation and installation of foundations for the first 1.2GW phase of the Dogger Bank project in the North Sea.

The Ulstein-design vessel — measuring 216.3 metres by 56 metres — will transport the monopile foundations and transition pieces to the site, more than 130km off the northeast coast of England, and install them in water depths of up to 35 metres.

Dogger Bank is being developed by SSE Renewables and Equinor, with first power expected in 2023 from its 13MW Haliade-X turbines made by GE Renewable Energy.

CMHI is also building two similar vessels — Vind 1 and Vind 2 — for OHT in an initial contract signed with the Chinese yard in July last year.

Both Vind 1 and Vind 2 will be jack-ups of GustoMSCNG-14000XL-G design capable of working in 65 metres of water, featuring a telescopic crane with maximum capacity of 2,500 tonnes and a maximum lifting height of about 165 metres.

OHT said the vessels have been "prepared for fuel cells powered by hydrogen to be installed to cut emissions even further when such technology becomes available".

This article first appeared in Recharge's sister publication Upstream

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China launches giant installation vessel to help build world's largest offshore wind farm