Massive Infill Of Dry Dock At Blyth Creates Base For New Narec Test Facility
Main contractor Shepherd Construction is in the process of pouring a mass of concrete into a dry dock at Blyth to create the base for one of the new test facilities being built on behalf of the National Renewable Energy Centre (Narec).
The programme, comprising three pours of mass concrete and a series of further pours of reinforced concrete, will use a massive 7000m³ of concrete – enough to fill more than 60 double decker buses.
This stage of the construction programme is due to complete at the end of June and will create hard standing that will be of the right depth to withstand the rigours of the specialist apparatus that will operate within the Nautilus marine renewable energy testing facility. After this, work on the steel frame of the building will begin.
Nautilus is the first of the three full-scale marine and wind test facilities that Shepherd Construction is building after securing the £30 million framework contract on behalf of Narec. The three structures will enable Narec to reinforce its position as a leading hub for the development and deployment of renewable energy technologies.
The other two facilities will be:
- a 127-metre long by 25-metre to eaves facility for testing new designs of wind turbine blades. This will be the largest of its type in the world; enabling the testing of wind turbine blades up to 100-metres long.
- a 72-metre long by 31-metre to eaves wind turbine drive train testing facility for the performance and reliability testing of entire wind turbine nacelles up to 15MW capacity.
Colin Sargeant, Shepherd Construction’s East Division managing director comments: “It is great to see the first main phase of the construction programme underway. The concrete pour is more technical than it sounds and needs to be done in stages, hence why it is being carried out over several weeks. We will begin erecting the 15-metre high steel frame of Nautilus in early summer.”