Pipe and plate bending specialists Angle Ring has identified key components in the renewable energy supply chain where its specialist bending services are needed and is now supplying to fabricators of wind and tidal equipment on projects that are reaching full fruition.
One such project, part of the UK Crown Estates’ Round One cycle of wind facilities and one of the most ambitious of its kind ever undertaken in Britain, is an offshore wind and gas farm located in the Irish Sea, 10kms off the coast of Walney Island near Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, due for completion by the end of 2011.
Angle Ring’s involvement in the project is a vital one in supplying J tube induction bends to Burntisland Fabrications Limited that provide protective sleeves for the power cables deployed from each of the 30 5MW turbines to the shore.
The facility is to be the world’s first full scale wind farm with this design of jacket substructure.
Angle Ring’s experience in successfully executing similar contracts for other major offshore wind facilities, coupled with its expertise in hot induction bending and cold bending techniques, and its experience in supplying bends and curves for access/mooring structures and wind tower access doors to the wind energy/energy renewables markets, clinched the contract with Burntisland.
The carbon steel bends were produced on Angle Ring’s 24-inch induction bending machine at its Tipton, UK, facility, operating well within its full capacity of up to 36-inch NB pipe.
The jackets themselves are currently under construction at Burntisland’s Methil factory in Fife.
For more information, visit www.anglering.com
