Work starts on world’s first jack-up for next-gen offshore wind turbines

The Cosco Shipping shipyard in Nantong, China, has laid the keel for contractor Jan de Nul’s Voltaire jack-up installation vessel.

Voltaire will be the first vessel on the market able to transport, lift and install super-sized ‘next-generation’ offshore wind turbines and their ever-larger foundations.

The jack-up, which stands taller than France’s Eiffel Tower and has a lifting capacity of over 3,000 tonnes, has already been chosen by oil major Equinor and British utility SSE to install GE 13MW turbines at the world’s biggest offshore wind project, the 3.6GW