UK utility SSE has claimed that the foundations supporting 52 of the 140 turbines at its Greater Gabbard wind farm, currently under construction in the North Sea, are defective. The project is being built by Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Ltd (GGOWL), in which SSE has a 50% stake. RWE npower is the other stakeholder.
Now SSE is in dispute with Fluor, the main contractor for the 500 MW development. It is now known that the dispute started in 2009 when 52 foundations made in China and deployed in the early stages of the development, were revealed to have "quality problems". In its half year report SSE states that it had notified Fluor in October that “all 52 of the relevant foundations are defective and do not meet the standard required by the contract between the two companies”.
Fluor counters that it has already spent GBP300m worth of time and costs in carrying out additional tests and repairs to welds on the foundations, but while SSE accepts that previous repairs to a number of the monopile foundations are sound, the balance of the monopiles and all 52 of the transition pieces are believed to be defective, and on the basis of this claim has threatened to issue a counter claim against Fluor, arguing that it was forced to carry out its own programme of offshore testing to determine whether the foundations met the required contractual standards and will provide a full operating life of at least 25 years.
SSE states in its report that it “hopes that Fluor will comply with its obligations in a satisfactory way but if necessary GGOWL will protect its contractual rights by issuing a formal counter claim”. An SSE spokesman said that the company believes Fluor is obliged to fix the problems and cover the costs of any work. "GGOWL believes the onus is currently on Fluor Limited to determine how it proposes to meet its contractual obligation to ensure the transition pieces and monopiles comply with the contract, and that Fluor Limited will be liable for all associated costs," he said.
Despite the dispute, Fluor's claim for about £300m against SSE over the costs it says it incurred testing and repairing some of the welds on the foundations, SSE's threatened counter-claim, and the need to repair up to 52 of the transition pieces, both companies are expressing conficence that the project will finish on time before end-2012. All 140 monopiles and transition pieces have apparently now been installed and all but 18 of the turbines, 83 of which have already exported electricity to the grid..
However, it is still unclear which company will pay for the work, or whether the wind turbines will have to be dismantled to fix the problem.
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