A. K. Suda and its team of naval architects and marine engineers have designed the largest number of modern liftboats (self-elevating jackups) in the U.S. including the four largest in the world. The Suda designs, which are predominantly used in the oil and gas industry, are known worldwide. Seeing the need to support more sustainable green energy sources, Suda has parlayed its success in the oil and gas industry to develop a series of wind turbine installation vessels (WTIVs) for installation and maintenance of offshore wind farms.
The challenge the United States faces is that there are no U.S. Jones Act vessels large enough to perform the work of large scale, offshore windmill installations in U.S. waters. The U.S. Jones Act requires that this activity be performed by a U.S. built and manned vessel. It must also be U.S. flagged. In the current Jones Act qualified fleet there is no vessel that can carry a single major component of even a mid-sized turbine.
This makes the WTIV the single most critical component in the development of the offshore wind farm. Its functions can range from transporting turbine components from shore to site, to installation of the turbine foundations in the seabed, and assembling each component on site. After installation of the wind farm is complete, they are also used to maintain and repair the farms.
Suda has evaluated all the intended staging ports in the U.S., and consulted with major EPCI contractors and wind farm owners. The result was a series of designs, the JG series, which defied all expectations. They carry more for less. An important myth they shattered was that a US built WTIV would be prohibitively expensive. That was true of the EU designs (as the industry calls them) not with the JG series.
The first in the series, the Suda JG6000, will be U.S. Jones Act compliant and works within all U.S. staging ports.
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