This week’s Wind Energy Update news brief includes the following companies and organisations: SSE, RWE Innogy; SeaEnergy, Robert Gordon University, Technology Strategy Board; Dong Energy, University of Oxford, Imperial College London, University College Dublin; The Crown Estate, Arthur Cox; GL Garrad Hassan

News compiled and written by Ritesh Gupta

Weekly Intelligence Brief 5 - 12, 2013

Greater Gabbard farm boasts 140 turbines in deepest waters

The 500MW Greater Gabbard wind farm was officially opened last week by the Business and Energy Minister Michael Fallon in Lowestoft, Suffolk.

The project is the world’s second largest operational offshore wind farm, with an installed capacity of 504 MW and is a 50-50 joint venture partnership between SSE and RWE Innogy. The £1.6bn investment has delivered 140 turbines. Construction commenced in 2008 and was completed in September last year. Located 23 km from the coast, it is furthest from the shore, and in the deepest water, of any operational UK offshore wind farm. The project will double in size when the 504MW Galloper extension is completed in 2017.

It is being highlighted that around £500m has been invested with UK companies, representing 50% of the total costs excluding turbine purchase.

SeaEnergy to develop innovative O&M model

SeaEnergy has finalised a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Robert Gordon University to develop an operational and economic model for life cycle cost of operations and maintenance (O&M) strategies in offshore windfarms. The studies will take place in the UK where the largest offshore wind farms are located in the deepest waters in the wind energy industry to date.

This initiative is being supported by the Technology Strategy Board. The project intends to work on an analytical tool for the offshore windfarm industry, which allows users to assess the quantitative impact of alternative O&M strategies for offshore windfarms.

Sean Huff, from the Aberdeen Business School at Robert Gordon University, is the academic lead on the project. He will be working together with Mike Comerford, director of operations at SeaEnergy to oversee the development of the operational and economic model together with a KTP Associate, who will be recruited in the very near future.

Dong Energy R&D project aims to cut costs

Danish utility Dong Energy has initiated a unique R&D project aimed at reducing the cost of energy from offshore wind turbines. The company has entered into cooperation with an academic consortium.

The consortium, led by the University of Oxford and including Imperial College London and University College Dublin, will investigate, along with Dong and its partners, how offshore wind turbine foundations can be designed more effectively in the future. The consortium has won a contract pertaining to the research project, PISA (Pile Soil Analysis), which is being carried out by an industry working group headed by Dong Energy and involving RWE, Statoil, Statkraft, SSE, Scottish Power and Vattenfall. For this project, an international tender competition was carried out to find an academic partner to provide the scientific support to the industry partners.

Dong Energy states that the monopile foundation for a typical offshore wind turbine weighs approximately 600 tonnes and primarily consists of steel. The thickness of the steel used for each pile is about 100mm. If this can be reduced, even by a fraction it can result in substantial savings.

The working group has entered into cooperation with the University of Oxford for a period of 18 months. The plan is to identify technological solutions to be implemented in time for the design and construction of the large Round 3 offshore wind projects in the United Kingdom. The working group will be publishing their final reports in 2015.

The Crown Estate appoints legal advisor in Northern Ireland

The Crown Estate has appointed Arthur Cox in Belfast as its legal advisor in Northern Ireland following a competitive tender process.

Arthur Cox joins The Crown Estate’s panel of dedicated jurisdiction-specific lawyers, which also includes Anderson Strathern for Scotland and Hugh James for Wales.

The firm’s appointment will be on a five-year basis covering the majority of the entity’s activities across its £14.8m portfolio in Northern Ireland, including rights to licence renewable energy and gas storage offshore as well as coastal interests.

Borkum Riffgrund 1 makes progress

Danish utility Dong Energy has shared that the first major milestone in the construction of the offshore wind farm Borkum Riffgrund 1 is set to be achieved. The entity recently started shipping of the offshore substation to the construction site located approximately 54km off the East Frisian coast in the German North Sea. It is being highlighted that with a total capacity of 3,500 tonnes and a total height of 65 metres, it is in terms of logistics a tremendous achievement to load the topside and the jacket construction of the substation onto the barge.

The offshore wind farm Borkum Riffgrund 1 covers an area of 36km2 and is located in the German part of the North Sea, approximately 37km north-west of the island of Borkum. The 77 wind turbines have a total capacity of 277MW.

The substation and the jacket each weigh approximately 1,800 tons and were transported be means of multi- wheelers to the quay where they were loaded onto the barge, Boa Barge 36. Additionally, eight steel pipes of 150 tons each, which will be used to secure the jacket to the seabed, have been loaded onto the barge with a crane. As per the update shared recently, after components are placed on the barge, depending on the weather conditions, the 465m2 large substation will arrive at the construction site. The installation of the two components was to commence recently. Subsequently, the topside will be installed.

European O&M workforce could triple; call for more training courses

The European wind industry is currently facing a shortage of 7,000 qualified personnel each year, according to the Workers wanted: The EU wind energy sector skills gap report.

According to this report by the European Wind Energy Technology Platform (TPWind), based on research by renewable energy consultancy GL Garrad Hassan, this figure could increase to 15,000 by 2030 if the number of graduates taking courses relevant to the industry does not rise. Importantly, the education and training on offer lags behind technical developments in the wind energy sector. The skills shortage is likely to be greatest in operations and maintenance roles.

Among many recommendations it is being suggested that there is a need to increase the emphasis on O&M training: more training courses within the wind industry must focus on this critical area. Although O&M training is available, this section of the workforce could more than triple in size between 2012 and 2030 while other engineering disciplines remain broadly constant. Training programmes in the wind industry must target this skills area.