Knights Brown has been awarded a contract to upgrade the pontoons in the Rampion Offshore Wind Farm operations and maintenance base within the Port of Newhaven.

Rampion is the first offshore wind farm off the south coast of England and is owned and operated by RWE Renewables, the third largest renewable energy generator in UK.

The operations and maintenance base is a permanent structure, located within the Port of Newhaven comprising offices, warehousing and quayside facilities for the wind farm work vessels.

Knights Brown will replace the current pontoons with bespoke concrete units. This has proved to be a more reliable and robust solution to the originally intended refurbishment due to uncertainty about the condition of the structures below water.

As a result of this alternative approach, during construction works RWE’s operations will be maintained uninterrupted for longer, while the programme has been reduced by some 12 weeks and cost savings in the region of £0.5m have been achieved, compared to the refurbishment option.

These works are Knights Brown’s second visit to the operations and maintenance base. In 2017 a design and construct contract was completed for quayside development works including piled foundations for a 60,000 litre fuel tank and two Davit cranes, revetment repairs, access routes, drainage and a services corridor.

Rampion Wind Farm comprises 116 turbines and is located in the English Channel between 13 and 20 kilometres off the Sussex coast. It covers an area of 72 square kilometres and has an installed capacity of 400 megawatts. It is now generating almost 1,400 Gigawatt hours of power each year, enough to power around half the homes in Sussex.