O&M opinions and insights for the offshore wind industry

Taking offshore safety further than ever before with Service Operation Vessels

Article courtesy Siemens TheEnergyBlog

2015 marked the beginning of a new era in offshore wind power, when Siemens Wind Power Service christened the first of two purpose-built Service Operation Vessels (SOVs). Now one year on we take a look back at the 1st year to find out how the vessel has performed and how those who use them every day feel they have improved their working lives at sea. In this article we follow up with Andreas Geißen, who is one of the Environmental Health & Safety Officers responsible for ensuring the day-to-day safety of the teams who service the wind farm from this pioneering and floating offshore base. Continue reading

Report calls for lower outage time

The offshore wind industry has paid little attention to outage time. This claim is made by MAKE Consulting in a recently released report about offshore wind O&M in Northern Europe.

The report describes that turbines are becoming larger, with the current average of 3.9 MW expected to increase to 5.9 MW by 2020. But this means that losses associated with downtime will become even more costly, particularly from failure of major components. As a result, service providers are forced to implement strategies to reduce downtime from major component failures. Continue reading

E.ON launches new offshore wind O&M strategy at Scroby Sands

In what could signify a crossroads for the offshore wind industry, E.ON has internalised the O&M of offshore wind turbines at Scroby Sands. I spoke recently with Scroby Sands’ Operations Manager Keith Cooke about it, who told me the warranty period for these turbines was coming to an end, and instead of renewing the warranty, they decided to take on the maintenance themselves.

Of course, there are implications of taking on maintenance in this way. There’s a lot to learn and we, as O&M partners to the offshore wind industry, can provide a lot of value and have an important role to play. Continue reading

How to establish a safe offshore wind jack-up foundation

Establishing a safe foundation is a vital part of jack-up operations. The jack-up vessel needs to be supported by an absolutely solid foundation during the entire jack-up operation at any given site. As the vessel is jacked up, the weight is carried by the legs and onto the seabed. The seabed must be able to provide the necessary support. If it doesn’t, there is potential for disaster.

There is always some risk, even if extremely slight, associated with this and it’s important to take all the necessary steps to mitigate these risks. Continue reading

Better cooperation across the offshore wind industry will help reduce costs of wind energy

Reducing costs of operation is critical to the long-term future of offshore wind energy. We need to see more cooperation between utilities, turbine manufacturers and vessel operators in optimising contracts, resources and standards across the industry if we are to see the efficiencies the industry demands.

A recent report on the offshore wind industry commissioned by OffshoreWindOM.com highlights the significant cost savings available. Digging deeper into the research behind the report, there are several important factors that will help drive the industry to the next level. Continue reading

The key to success in wind projects is the contract

Get it right the first time and save a lot of time and money. The right and proper contract for a wind farm is the roadmap to a solid business case. This calls for knowledge, insight, understanding and, importantly, dialogue on both sides of the negotiation table from utilities and developers.

Today’s wind projects cannot rely on a standard contract from the wind turbine manufacturer. The costs of capex and opex are so high that there has to be a robust contract that secures an investment that should stretch beyond 20 years. Continue reading

The secret behind a strong safety culture in offshore wind

Why are there fewer work accidents within teams of people who have worked together for a long time? They might not have documented safety procedures that are consciously followed to the letter, but they seem to have an inherent understanding of what it takes to work together as a team. Whether they’re aware of it or not, people in such groups have all been part of creating a group culture – and a cornerstone of this culture is safety.

Safety is of paramount importance in the offshore wind energy sector. Everyone talks about it and many claim sufficient understanding of safety requirements. But, unfortunately, I believe there are several misconceptions about what this means. Continue reading

Carbon Trust: Seven challenges facing offshore wind

The Carbon Trust helps businesses, governments and the public sector with efforts to move to a sustainable, low carbon economy through carbon reduction, energy-saving strategies and commercialising low carbon technologies. The Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA) is Carbon Trust’s flagship collaborative R&D programme. It is a joint industry project, involving nine offshore wind developers which aims to reduce the cost of offshore wind through innovation. O&M activities are relevant to several of the OWA’s research areas, including cable installation, access systems and foundations.

I recently spoke to Megan Smith, Associate in Innovation at the Carbon Trust, to ask her what she sees as the main challenges facing offshore wind operations and maintenance. Megan joined the Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA) in 2013. She manages research projects in a range of areas including optimisation of electrical systems, O&M strategy, and floating LiDAR validation and demonstration.

Here’s what we discussed: Continue reading