All-Energy 2009 reports Offshore Wind Farm Installation Vessels in short supply!
A clear message has come out of the All-Energy'09 Conference, held in Aberdeen on 20/21st May... on the horizon, there is a huge shortage of vessels to install wind turbines and their foundations. Mike Prowse from A2SEA reminded the conference attendees that the UK target to install 7,700 WTGs (equivalent to 38.5 GW using 5MW WTGs) in UK waters over the next 12 years, is actually competing with the wider European targets for 53.5 GW installed power, or a further 10,000 WTGs to install.
Looking at the vessel requirements, Mr Prowse talked about the need for 88 vessel years to install these wind turbines, plus more for O&M activities. This demands a wind farm construction vessel build programme of 11 vessels per year for 8 years to meet this need. Such a build programme would need an investment of €2 - €2.5 billion.
These huge investments for specialist vessels indicates the rental cost of these specialist vessels is not going to come down and the cost and risk of securing a vessel to build an offshore wind farm will be high.
There has to be an alternative approach that does not need these high cost specialist vessels. That is what Xanthus Energy realised 6 years ago when we began to develop our SeaBreeze: Fixed and SeaBreeze: Floating Wind Turbine Foundations.
Now is the time to invest in alternative installation processes - Xanthus Energy is ready to partner your company in developing these methods based on SeaBreeze products.
ACTION!
Contact Dr Lewis Lack for more details of how your company can
reduce costs and break the need to use specialist installation vessels.
tel: +44 (0)7980 694808
Email: news@xanthusenergy.com
New Services from Xanthus Energy!
The same highly skilled team who work on Xanthus Energy products is now available as consultants to provide expert engineering design, development and build services for our clients.
This team have a wide and deep understanding of the technical engineering and business needs of offshore operations - proven in our product development and that of our sister company, Ocean Resource Ltd.
ACTION!
For
more details, visit our Services
Webpage, or call Lewis Lack on +44 (0) 7980 694808 for a confidential
discussion about your company services needs.
Minimising
Offshore Wind Farm Cost and Risk
The
exposure to danger, associated costs and risks involved in assembling
offshore wind farms are huge, much more than normal shipping operations.
For the technicians and companies doing this work, they take on jobs
where safety must come first. But this can raise costs and jeopardise
completion of the installation tasks on time.
These risks are recognised by the BWEA who will hold their BWEA
Health & Safety 09 event in February 2009. On the other hand,
how much longer can we accept these risks and costs? There is always
pressure on the price of electricity from offshore wind farms so any
opportunity to reduce the CAPEX and OPEX costs as well as risk must
be considered seriously.
The photo montage below shows some of the offshore assembly activities
and associated risks.
Now imagine all this work could be done on-shore or in a dry dock, with much less risk.
The fully assembled wind turbine with its foundation system could be towed out to sea and placed exactly where it is required with no use of heavy life vessels, no high risk activities, no requirement for stable jack up vessels and a much faster installation process.
That is the target of Xanthus Energy Ltd with their new patented SeaBreeze offshore wind turbine foundation systems. No longer are high cost, specialised vessels required to install wind turbines offshore. Both risk and cost are hugely reduced. This is the dawn of a new age for offshore wind.
Download a PDF version of this article by clicking here.
ACTION!
Contact Dr Lewis Lack for more details of how your company can reduce
risk and cost.
tel: +44 (0)7980 694808
Email: news@xanthusenergy.com