SeAH Group is rapidly expanding its global offshore wind power business. It is expanding its presence in the European market as an offshore wind substructure supplier.
SeAH Wind, an offshore wind substructure manufacturing subsidiary of SeAH Steel Holdings, announced on Dec. 14 that it has been awarded a 1.49 trillion won (US$1.15 billion) contract to supply XXL monopile substructures for the Norfolk Vanguard Project, the world’s largest offshore wind farm by Swedish state-owned power company Vattenfall.
SeAH Wind will deliver offshore wind XXL monopile substructures up to 11 meters in diameter, 2,250 tons in weight and 95 meters in length by the end of 2027. The monopiles will be produced at the world’s largest monopile factory, currently under construction in the United Kingdom. Commercial production of them will begin in the first half of 2025.
The Norfolk Vanguard Project will set up a large-scale offshore wind farm 47 kilometers off the southeast coast of the United Kingdom. It will have a generating capacity of 2.8 GW. The volume is enough to power about 1.95 million homes per day.
The North Sea region has strong currents and offshore wind substructures are installed in deep water. In this environment, the monopiles supplied by SeAH Wind are recognized for their strong durability in resisting waves and corrosion among others. Monopiles are the foundation structures that securely anchor an offshore wind farm to the bottom of the sea.
SeAH Wind also made a foray into the UK offshore wind market in 2022. It is currently building a production plant on a 99,200-square-meter site in Teesside, northeast England. It will go live in the first half of 2025 and produce 240,000 tons of monopiles per year. It will be the largest in the world.
By landing the Norfolk Vanguard Project, SeAH wind has already secured three years’ worth of production work for its UK plant. Last year, the company won an order for monopiles for a 2.85 GW offshore wind farm in the North Sea by Denmark’s Orsted, the world’s largest offshore wind company.