Teesside and the energy revolution: Bauer Spezialtiefbau executes foundation works for the world’s largest monopile manufacturing facility for offshore wind

Teesside, UK – The northeastern region of England has more to offer than its impressive natural landscape of coastline, moors, hills and rivers. It is also home to an interesting mix of industrial heritage and modern development. The urban area of Teesside, named after the Tees River, is located here directly on the North Sea coast. Particularly in the 20th century, it was known as an important location for heavy industry. Despite its recent history, this area is gearing up for the future: A new manufacturing facility for the construction of monopiles for offshore wind is currently being built on a former steelworks site in Teesside. What makes this project special: The future manufacturing facility extends across a 90 acre site and will be the world’s first XXXL monopile factory for offshore wind after its completion. As many as 150 monopiles will be produced annually to be transported first to the new South Bank Quay of Teesworks and then on to installation in the North Sea.

Around 7,000 piles in 14 months
SeAH Wind Ltd., with principal contractor K2 Construction Management, commissioned the Joint Venture between BAUER Technologies Ltd., the British subsidiary of BAUER Spezialtiefbau GmbH, and Keller UK to carry out the necessary foundation work. This work included installing roughly 1,500 piles with a diameter of up to 1,180 mm and a depth of around 35 m.

In addition, a further 5,500 CFA piles were constructed with diameters of 600, 750 and 900 mm and a drilling depth of 28 m. All in all, this was a tough job for the specialist foundation engineering experts – and they completed it in record time of just 14 months.

No easy task
Big project, many challenges. Both above and below ground, the site team had to tackle a number of challenges: For one thing, strong gusts of wind impacted a great deal of lifting work. Furthermore, the soil conditions turned out to be very difficult in relation to installing CFA piles through slag which required pre-drilling. As a result, extreme caution and precision were required. “But good planning and organization are ultimately the key,” explained Dien Nackaerts, Project Manager of Bauer Technologies. He proudly sums it up: “Thanks to a fantastic team and excellent effort, we were able to manage these numerous challenges without problems.”

The work began in June 2022 and will be successfully completed in August 2023.