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Marine operations

At present the costs of installation, intervention and decommissioning of offshore wind concepts are unreasonably high when using state of the art conventional technology, such as jackups or offshore crane vessels. There is thus a need for a new mindset to develop safe but less costly technologies and procedures for such operations.

For deepwater offshore wind concepts, the state of the art is to use crane vessels for said operations, however, this might not be attractive in view of the costs of employing sufficiently large size vessels that can operate under most weather conditions. It should in this respect be noted that today’s smaller crane vessels may have movement characteristics that will make such operations difficult or impossible for prolonged periods of the year.

New technologies are therefore needed for installation, intervention, and decommissioning of offshore wind energy concepts. We will in particular investigate the use of ballast procedures combined with use of offshore service vessels to perform such operations in a safe manner, but other concepts will also be investigated.

Asset management

Costs related to operation and maintenance of offshore wind turbines are large, typically more than 25% of the cost of energy produced. At present there is insufficient knowledge available to assess the condition of wind farms and to estimate how failures develop over time. This implies that a broad scope of new methods and techniques are required for management of offshore wind turbines. The assurance of technical integrity is an inherent design challenge for offshore wind turbines and maintenance-related challenges contribute to a major portion of the risk that the offshore wind turbines are exposed to.