Bladt Industries

Bladt Industries fabricated the 36 steel monopile foundations for the Offshore Windpark Egmond aan Zee (OWEZ) at its Aalborg facilities in Denmark, supplying them as a subcontractor to the Bouwcombinatie Egmond (BCE) EPC joint venture (Ballast Nedam + Vestas). Per the OWEZ-R-141 General Report published by NoordzeeWind/Shell, "the foundation used is a steel monopile, 45m long on average with a diameter of 4,6m and a wall thickness of 40 to 60mm. Its weight is approx. 230 tons. These piles were made at Bladt industries in Denmark." The OWEZ monopiles were sized for an unprotected/protected foundation comparison study run by BCE before final design, with protected piles selected for cost efficiency. The design loop iterated between Vestas's in-house FLEX5 turbine load package and Ballast Nedam's Infra Consult and Engineering (IC+E) Ansys FE-model of the support structure. Final monopiles were piled to ~30 m penetration depth into the seabed using IHC S-1200 hammers, with installation performed by the Svanen heavy-lift vessel adapted for offshore wind from its original bridge-construction role. The OWEZ scope of 36 monopiles at 230 tons each made it an early-2000s anchor reference for the Dutch monopile fabrication market and established Bladt as a key supplier in the European offshore wind monopile and transition piece segment.