Offshore Wind Journal 3rd Quarter 2018

3rd Quarter 2018 www.owjonline.com

Journal

CfD 2.0 on the horizon as UK debates future support mechanisms

Space constraints see Belgium look to its neighbours

“Another important advantage of using hydrogen to store power from renewable energy is its ability to do so for long periods of time, much longer than is possible with batteries�

Dr Graham Cooley, chief executive, ITM Power, see page 39

Digital doppelgangers could help reduce costs

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Contents 3rd Quarter 2018 volume 7 issue 3

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06

Regulars 5 COMMENT

Area reports 6 Germany: without another auction, climate change targets will be missed and jobs lost, industry associations claim 10 Belgium: Belgium is expanding its offshore wind targets but ultimately capacity will be constrained by the small size of the country’s EEZ 15 India: the Modi administration in India wants to build the country’s first offshore windfarms, but there are questions about the size of the first project, tariffs and affordability

10

Foundations 18 With much larger turbines in development, the offshore wind supply chain needs to respond to the demands they will place on foundations

Operations & maintenance 21 Digital twins could help operators of offshore windfarms to maintain them, and could also reduce costs

21

Project focus 25 The newly-completed European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre despatched its first power to the grid in July

Finance 28 The UK government’s commitment to hold regular auctions for renewable energy was excellent news, but support mechanisms for offshore wind need to evolve

Scour protection

28

32 Determining susceptibility to scour using physical modelling is essential to protect turbines and other offshore structures

Survey 35 An innovative approach to carrying out seabed surveys is being rolled out on the Butendiek, Dan Tysk and Sandbank offshore windfarms

Analysis 39 Converting energy from renewables such as offshore wind to hydrogen has a host of potential benefits

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Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

Contents 3rd Quarter 2018 volume 7 issue 3

Turbine technology 43 The first company to develop a credible ferrite-based direct drive permanent magnet generator believes the concept could enter production in as little as three years

Cost reduction 47 A commitment to hold regular auctions for renewable energy will help drive further cost reduction in the UK's world-leading offshore wind industry

Vessels – cable-lay 50 The offshore wind industry and interconnector markets are driving demand for new vessels and cable-lay equipment

Contractor profile 55 Working in partnership with leading players in the country, a newlyformed company aims to provide a wide range of services to Taiwan’s offshore wind industry

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Editor: David Foxwell t: +44 1252 717 898 e: david.foxwell@rivieramm.com Commercial Portfolio Manager: Bill Cochrane t: +44 20 8370 1719 e: bill.cochrane@rivieramm.com Head of Sales – Asia: Kym Tan t: +65 9456 3165 e: kym.tan@rivieramm.com Sales, Australasia: Kaara Barbour t: +61 414 436 808 e: kaara.barbour@rivieramm.com Group Production Manager: Mark Lukmanji t: +44 20 8370 7019 e: marklukmanji@rivieramm.com Subscriptions: Sally Church t: +44 20 8370 7018 e: sally.church@rivieramm.com Chairman: John Labdon Managing Director: Steve Labdon Finance Director: Cathy Labdon Operations Director: Graham Harman Head of Content: Edwin Lampert Head of Production: Hamish Dickie

Next issue • Area report: Scotland • Area report: China • Area report: US • Emerging markets for offshore wind • Operations and maintenance • Foundations • Turbine technology • Finance • Offshore access/walk-to-work • Noise control & environmental issues • Training & recruitment • Project focus • Turbine maintenance & repair • Condition monitoring

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Front cover: The world’s largest blade for an offshore wind turbine is loaded onto a vessel for transport to the UK (photo: LM Wind)

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Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

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COMMENT | 5

Massachusetts to take advantage of being first mover T

David Foxwell, Editor

“Over the life of the contract, the Vineyard Wind project will provide an average US$0.014/kWhr of direct savings to consumers”

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he offshore wind industry has become accustomed to good news about cost reduction, not least in Europe, where auctions have resulted in zero-subsidy bids and a steep decline in costs in every market.

So much for Europe. In the US, where offshore wind is now taking off, costs were expected to be higher and cost reduction harder to achieve, at least initially. Unlike the UK, the US doesn’t have an established supply chain or country-wide policy providing support for renewable energy like the UK’s contracts for difference.

So, the wholesale price that the state of Massachusetts will pay for electricity generated from the 800-MW Vineyard Wind offshore wind project – America’s first large, commercial-scale project – is all the more remarkable.

Documents from the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Department of Energy Resources released by the state show that Vineyard Wind will provide the Commonwealth with energy and renewable energy certificates (RECs) at a levelised price of US$0.065/kWhr over the term of the contracts.

The department said that, on average, the contracts are expected to reduce customer’s monthly electricity bills by 0.1% to 1.5%. Yes, you read that right. America’s first commercialscale offshore wind project will reduce the price consumers will pay for electricity, not add to it.

In its statement, the department said, “The total price is below the levelised projected cost of buying the same amount of wholesale energy and renewable energy certificates in the market.”

That means that, over the life of the contract, the Vineyard Wind project will provide an average US$0.014/kWhr of direct savings to consumers.

In addition to the direct market benefits from these fixed-cost contracts, the 800-MW offshore wind project also provides indirect benefits. These indirect benefits include energy market price reductions and lower renewable energy portfolio standard compliance costs

through increased REC supply. Additionally, ratepayers receive the benefit of price certainty through a fixed-cost contract. Overall, the total direct and indirect benefits to Massachusetts ratepayers from the long-term contracts with Vineyard Wind are expected to be US$0.035/ kWhr, or US$35.29/MWhr on average over the term of the contract, with total net benefits of approximately US$1.4Bn. Vineyard Wind LLC chief executive Lars Thaaning (who leads a company owned 50% by funds of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and 50% by Avangrid Renewables), said this amazing price – which, incidentally, is around half what was expected – was achieved by utilising federal investment tax credits within the structure of a long-term power purchase agreement. What is interesting about the Massachusetts deal is the benefits that have accrued from, firstly a longterm power purchase agreement, and secondly, federal tax credits in the form of the investment tax credit (ITC).

The size of the Vineyard Wind project is also enough to exert downward pressure on future prices for offshore wind and provides a unique opportunity to maximise the value of the federal investment tax credit because the ITC is due to be gradually reduced and will not be available for projects that start construction after 31 December 2019.

That December 2019 deadline is worth bearing in mind. It has been proposed by some politicians that it might be extended until 2025, but unless it is, other states up and down the east coast of the US that are keen to get a slice of offshore wind action won’t be able to take advantage of it. That is, unless they execute an agreement quickly.

But for the state of Massachusetts, the benefits are clear. Attractively priced clean energy, and ‘first mover’ advantage in offshore wind development in the US, which will provide significant opportunities for development of a local supply chain and jobs in the Commonwealth. OWJ

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

6 | AREA REPORT Germany

Despite delays, three Cs will see Germany commit to another auction Developing and implementing energy policy in Europe’s largest economy has never seemed more difficult but climate change goals and a coalition commitment to renewables should eventually see Germany hold more auctions for offshore wind

Without another auction, it is claimed Germany cannot meet climate targets and jobs could be lost

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ermany’s coalition government has indicated it will launch new auctions for onshore wind and solar. It has been implied that there will also be additional auctions for offshore wind. Until recently industry bodies were bullish about the fact they would happen, but as of the end of July 2018 there was no firm commitment to any of them.

Chancellor Merkel’s political difficulties of late – particularly a dispute about immigration federal minister of the interior and coalition partner Horst Seehofer – have undoubtedly played a role in the holdup but German economy minister Peter Altmaier

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

recently refused even to specify dates for the additional auctions for onshore wind and solar, citing grid connection issues.

Politics, perennial problems with grid connection that have affected onshore and offshore wind, a lack of ambition and the rather rigid nature of the German market have combined to stall progress in Germany’s offshore wind energy industry, and the Energiewende, the country’s ‘energy transition,’ as a whole.

Factor in the phase-out of nuclear power and coal, missed 2020 climate targets, a commitment to somehow meet 2030 targets and a 2050 climate action plan

that aims for ‘climate neutrality’ and energy policy in Europe’s largest economy looks more complex – and intractable – than ever.

Then factor in the fact there will be no new tenders for offshore wind until 2021 unless the government introduces additional auctions, and the industry has reason to be concerned about the direction of policy in the country.

There is however, some good news, as Stiftung Offshore‐Windenergie managing director Andreas Wagner told OWJ, in the form of what he called the three ‘Cs.’ The first C is a broad commitment by the coalition to more renewable energy; the

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Germany AREA REPORT | 7

second is climate targets Germany wants to meet, however challenging they may be; and the third is the upcoming COP 24 climate summit in Poland, which he suggested is likely to focus minds in the government.

However, he might have added a fourth C to describe the process: complexity.

A draft bill for the reform of legislation on renewable energy (the ErneuerbareEnergien-Gesetz or EEG) was tabled in June 2018 but did not mention higher targets for offshore wind.

“The EEG has to be reformed,” Mr Wagner told OWJ. “Coal is being phased out, and Germany has set a target of 65% of electricity from renewable energy by 2030.

Climate goals set by the government cannot be achieved without more offshore wind, but the government needs to be convinced that the grid can take more offshore wind power if more windfarms are built.”

That 65% target is a “very ambitious one,” VDMA power systems unit head Matthias Zelinger told OWJ, and Chancellor Merkel has herself admitted that meeting 2030 climate targets will be “very, very challenging.”

“The 2030 goals set by Germany will bring it more into line with EU policy,” said Mr Zelinger. “States in Germany have also signalled that they expect the Federal Government to meet certain targets and they expect there to be a higher target for offshore wind. As an organisation VDMA supports higher targets for offshore wind, but it is clear there is a lot of work that needs to be done on the grid. Three new power lines are under construction, but in due course we will need a fourth and a fifth and we also need to investigate the potential of power to gas.” Using renewable energy to produce hydrogen that could be distributed in the natural gas grid could one day be a way issues in the electricity grid could be circumvented, he suggested. Doing so is technically feasible, it has been argued, but is not yet economically feasible.

But without a government commitment to another auction, the offshore wind supply chain is going to be squeezed, Mr Zelinger told OWJ. “OEMs need to have better visibility of potential backlog. Not everyone has that right now. The situation is the same, if not more difficult with the companies that manufacture foundations. Another issue is the competition some of them face from low cost countries such as Poland. As long as the European offshore wind market is a free and open one, some German companies will find it hard to compete.”

Back in September 2017, economy and

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energy ministers in several north German states issued what became known as the ‘Cuxhaven appeal,’ an 11-point paper calling for further investment in offshore wind. This was actually the second such appeal, the first, issued in 2013, having helped shape the debate about German energy policy and the direction of the Energiewende.

More recently, German industry organisations involved in offshore wind energy issued another appeal, calling on the government to beef up targets for renewable energy and said climate targets in the country “can only be achieved with more offshore wind.” In their July 2018 statement, they said a commitment to at least 1.5 GW more offshore wind is urgently needed.

Figures released on 19 July 2018 by VMDA Power Systems, Bundesverband Wind Energie, Stiftung Offshore‐ Windenergie, Windenergie Agentur WAB and Offshore Wind Energy Working Group indicate five offshore windfarms with a capacity of 1.944 GW were under construction in the first half of 2018. However, the industry bodies argue, without a commitment from the government for 1.5 GW more, the German Government will miss its renewable energy target and offshore activity could almost come to halt in 2020.

As highlighted above, the German Government has set a goal of 65% of the

Chancellor Merkel’s coalition government is committed to renewable energy and meeting 2030 targets, but policymaking has stalled

country’s power generation from renewable energy by 2030, but from an offshore wind industry perspective, the industry associations believe, the German Government is doing too little to achieve this goal.

“No concrete steps have been taken since the formation of the government in March 2018,” said the wind industry bodies, even though a coalition agreement seemed to suggest that additional tenders for offshore wind would be forthcoming.

“The standstill in energy policy in recent months must change. We call on the Federal Government to decide on the special contribution of offshore wind energy immediately after the summer break. Otherwise, climate targets cannot be achieved,” they said.

They noted that the expansion of offshore wind energy in Germany is proceeding according to plan, but only until 2020. At the end of the first half of 2018, 1,169 turbines with an output capacity of 5.387 GW were feeding electricity into the grid. Five projects with an output capacity of 1.944 GW are under construction. Of these, offshore wind turbines with an output of up to 1 GW are expected to be connected to the grid by the end of the year.

The share of offshore wind energy in total power generation increased from 2.7% to 2.9%. The share of all renewable energies in power generation was ahead of lignite and hard coal for the first time in the first half of 2018. However, the industry bodies said, increased expansion targets and additional tenders are “indispensable” if climate targets are to be met.

“From the industry’s perspective, the German Government must act now if it takes the 65% target seriously,” they said. “An expansion of at least 20 GW is required for offshore wind energy in Germany by 2030. At least 30 GW of offshore capacity must be installed by 2035. The existing expansion target of 15 GW by 2030 does not meet the Federal Government’s new targets.”

Without 1.5 GW of additional capacity, they argue, further investments and jobs in the wind energy sector will be endangered, as a recent industry survey conducted by IG Metall Küste showed.

Mr Wagner agreed with this sentiment, as did AGOW spokesperson Tim Bruns, when they spoke to OWJ shortly before the latest appeal from the industry was issued.

There is spare capacity for offshore wind left over from the latest, highly successful German auction, they suggest could be

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

8 | AREA REPORT Germany

used if an additional auction is tabled by the government. “The problem is that without another auction, we can see a gap approaching,” said Mr Wagner.

MAKE offshore analyst Søren Lassen agreed that connecting the energy-rich north of the country to energy-intensive industries in the south continues to be a major issue for German planners. “Germany really needs to get transmission system operators (TSOs) more involved in the process. Developers have argued they should be given greater responsibility over the grid.

A more centralised approach to offshore wind tenders could help too,” he said. Mr Zelinger said he agreed that changing to a centralised system could have benefits.

in the grid on land.

One such cost-effective solution could be a connection to Eemshaven. “Because this grid connection point is on the coast, it would be possible to save 100 km of underground cabling in Germany and thus around €200M (US$234M), bypassing bottlenecks in the German electricity grid,” TenneT said.

The TSO said the necessary legal certainty could be achieved through a German-Dutch treaty, which would stipulate that German windfarms and grid connections continue to be subject to German regulation.

In the German North Sea, TenneT currently has 10 offshore grid connection systems with a total capacity of 5.332 GW.

TenneT, one of Germany’s four TSOs, has suggested German offshore windfarms in the western part of the North Sea could be connected to the grid in the Netherlands

Mr Bruns explained that in June 2018 the Bundesnetzagentur – Germany’s federal net agency – approved the so called ‘Szenariorahmen 2019-2030,’ which includes scenarios for all types energy generation, including offshore wind, onshore wind and coal. The 2019-2030 plan included two scenarios for offshore wind – 17 GW and 20 GW by 2030 respectively – both of which lie above the current plan of 15 GW by 2030.

That is good news, but as Mr Bruns and Mr Wagner explained, that’s only part of the problem. The second part is getting energy produced offshore to power-hungry industry in the south.

“The TSOs need to step up,” said Mr Bruns. “They are very well aware of the grid bottleneck but the grid highways that take the power south are also an issue.”

Connecting the energy-rich north of the country to the south is likely to continue to be an issue for some time. At least three transmission lines above ground are unwelcome in much of Germany; three new underground lines are being built, but are behind schedule, Mr Wagner told OWJ. TenneT, one of Germany’s four TSOs, has suggested German offshore windfarms in the western part of the German North Sea could be connected to the grid in the Netherlands to help overcome grid connection issues. It said such a move could help Germany overcome bottlenecks

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

This means TenneT could provide more than 80% of the Federal Government’s expansion target of 6.5 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2020. By the end of 2023, TenneT will have completed three additional grid connection systems, which will provide 8.032 GW of transmission capacity in the North Sea. By 2027, three more connections will be implemented by TenneT or will be pending, according to the preliminary design of the land development plan of the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency.

This will increase the transmission capacity in the German North Sea to almost 11 GW. Although in the short-term government commitment to more auctions is clouded

by uncertainty and indecision, in the longer term there is little doubt that offshore wind has a big role to play in Germany, with the potential of cross-border projects with France already being touted.

A Franco-German declaration signed in Paris on 21 July could see the countries collaborate in the realisation of offshore wind and other renewable energy initiatives. The declaration noted that France and Germany believe co-ordination in the field of EU energy policy should be complemented by concrete projects and measures.

It welcomed the fact that the Fessenheim nuclear power plant in Germany will be closed 'as soon as possible' and said that as part of their co-ordinated climate and energy strategy, both countries will launch initiatives to realise a part of their respective national renewable energy deployment through joint pilot projects, such as the development of offshore wind in the North Sea. The declaration also said France and Germany agreed to work on requirements for implementing a test project for crossborder renewable energy auctions.

France and Germany are also committed to increasing their interconnection capacity, and to strengthening internal networks that currently constrain capacity.

The European neighbours also plan to work together on batteries and other forms of energy storage and strengthen co-operation on hydrogen.

“France and Germany see the European energy transition as a huge opportunity to deliver modernisation, innovation, digitalisation and job opportunities,” the declaration said, noting that Germany will phase out its last nuclear power plant by the end of 2022 and “continuously increase its share of renewable energies.” OWJ

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Development in auction system after 2020

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Without an extra auction there could be a hiatus in offshore wind rollout in German waters

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10 | AREA REPORT Belgium

The installation vessel Sea Installer loaded with components for the Rentel offshore windfarm

Space constraints see Belgium look to its neighbours Things are getting a little cramped in Belgium’s offshore wind space.

There is still plenty of development potential in Belgian waters, but in the long term Belgium’s offshore wind industry is going to be space-constrained

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

U

nlike some of its near neighbours in the North Sea, where tens of GW of offshore wind are being planned by some countries, Belgium’s offshore wind capacity will be limited by the small size of its territorial waters. But since the Belgian Government decided to phase out nuclear energy by 2025, it needs to focus increasingly on renewable energy and offshore wind in particular.

It will be some time before offshore windfarms have been developed on a sufficiently large scale to prevent further development, and new larger turbines could

mean windfarms of greater capacity can be built in smaller zones, but the constraints that lack of space place on Belgian offshore windfarms are already becoming apparent.

The Belgian part of the North Sea is one of the most intensively used seas in the world. Shipping, tourism, fisheries, aggregates exploitation and offshore windfarms all have to coexist with longstanding users of the sea such as shipping and Belgium’s leading ports and harbours, which makes marine spatial planning in the Belgian part of the North Sea a complex process. The smooth

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Belgium AREA REPORT | 11

functioning of the ports of Zeebrugge and Antwerp are particularly important to the Belgian economy and constraints on other users around the ports are stringent and unlikely to be modified to accommodate offshore wind or other users of the sea.

Despite a relatively limited marine territory, Belgium has been one of the most proactive European countries in offshore wind and around 238 km², that is 7% of the Belgian North Sea, is already devoted to renewable energy under a Marine Spatial Plan of March 2014.

In line with EU objectives, the Belgian Government supports the development of renewable energy sources and would like renewables to provide 13% of the energy consumed in the country by 2020.

Wind energy will play a key role in the country’s future renewable energy plans, with more than half of the electricity produced by windfarms expected to be produced offshore in the Belgian North Sea. A number of small-scale offshore windfarms that have already been approved are due to be completed by 2019-2020.

Despite the need for offshore wind, the rate of increase in offshore wind capacity in the country stalled recently, and it seemed questionable whether a 2020 target of 2 GW of offshore wind would be met.

Negotiations with industrial consumers, mainly led by energy-intensive companies, and investors on an appropriate level of support for offshore wind led to reform of the subsidy scheme and a new, less generous framework was approved by the government in June 2016. This reduced the level of subsidy for two offshore windfarms being built in Belgian waters, Rentel and Norther.

As a result of the recent downward price in the Dutch offshore wind sector, the Belgian Government has been under pressure to cut subsidies for the sector further. It reached an agreement with developers in October 2017 for three remaining concessions for offshore windfarms – Northwester 2, Seastar and Mermaid, the management of the latter two of which is now being merged – on a price of €79/MWhr (US$92/MWhr). This is considerably lower than the subsidy level committed to two offshore wind projects two years ago (€129.8 and €124/MWhr).

There has been some better news more recently, however, with a plan to more than double offshore wind capacity in the short term and, potentially, quadruple it in the longer term. April saw the authorities in

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Commission approves merger In July the European Commission approved the merger of the Mermaid and Seastar offshore windfarms, a move that will generate scale effects and enable cost reduction. Financial close for the new company formed by the merger, to be known as Seamade NV, is expected at the end of 2018with construction to start in 2019.

Seamade will be responsible for developing the Mermaid and Seastar offshore wind zones, which together have a capacity of 478.2 MW, approximately 25% of the currently allocated offshore wind capacity in Belgium. The merger will allow both projects to be financed in a single transaction. Seamade said it hopes the regulatory framework for the project, which was agreed with the Belgian Government at the end of 2017, will soon be implemented after approval by the European Commission and publication of relevant Royal Decrees. The project’s aim is to achieve financial close by the end of this year. Construction could then start in 2019 and the windfarm could be fully operational by the end of 2020.

Seamade chief executive Mathias Verkest said the merger would create synergies and scale effects that would facilitate cost reduction. The windfarms will use 58 Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy turbines on monopile foundations and two offshore substations which will connect to Elia’s modular offshore grid.

Belgium announce plans for offshore wind energy that included targets of 2.2 GW by 2020 and to 4 GW by 2030. It currently has four offshore windfarms totalling 871 MW. “The North Sea is a crucial partner in the transition towards renewable energy,” Belgian state secretary for the North Sea, Philippe De Backer said at the time the announcement was made.

Belgian Offshore Platform (BOP) secretary general Annemie Vermeylen told OWJ the Belgian Government wants to phase out two nuclear power plants that account for 5.9 GW of capacity.

The reactors at Doel and Tihange have experienced a series of technical problems at reactors and are due to close by 2025.

Belgium needs wind energy to replace them but is a relatively small country with little room for additional onshore capacity. That makes offshore wind even more important.

With new offshore windfarms urgently required, Belgium needs a new marine spatial plan for the period after 2020. This is currently being discussed and once completed will lead to new concessions and tenders.

The federal government earmarked an area of 211 km² for developing new windfarms after 2020, which should result in offshore power production doubling to 4 GW, but if a tender is not launched in good time for the post-2020 windfarms, a gap will open up between constructing projects already approved and the next round of

Belgian offshore projects. Although wellknown Belgian companies and contractors are picking up work outside the country, Ms Vermeylen said, a standstill – even for a short period of time – would not be good for the supply chain.

Ms Vermeylen told OWJ there are three conditions that need to be met for post-2020 projects to go ahead as planned and for final investment decisions to be made sufficiently early to avoid a gap in work offshore.

An agreement on new spatial planning is right at the top of that list. “The industry needs an agreement on spatial planning in 2019.”

The marine plan lays out principles, goals, objectives, a long-term vision and spatial policy choices for managing the Belgian territorial sea and exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Management actions, indicators and targets addressing marine protected areas and managing activity in the Belgian North Sea all need to be considered and reviewed every six years.

Once adopted, the plan is legally binding.

Fishing and offshore wind inevitably come into sharp focus wherever marine spatial planning is being undertaken.

The draft version of the agreement came in for some criticism because potential developers felt the zones, which are close to French waters, identified were too dense.

Ms Vermeylen told OWJ the BOP has been looking for a zone with an area of around 400 km2. The 211-km2 zone

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

12 | AREA REPORT Belgium

identified by the government obviously falls far short of that. She explained that too dense a zone for the new windfarms would inevitably mean the wake effect around turbines would adversely affect yield from windfarms built there. Developers would need to take into account that a very compressed zone would prevent them from optimising the configuration of any windfarms built in it and that could drive up rather than reduce costs.

Another looming issue to be addressed is what form future tenders for offshore windfarms will take and the selection criteria used. To date, renewable energy projects in Belgium have generally been supported by Green Certificates (GCs) issued by market regulators (in the case of offshore windfarms, the federal market regulator CREG). Producers either sell GCs to electricity suppliers, or offer them for sale to Elia, the Belgian transmission system operator (TSO).

For post-2020 windfarms, some form of auction process will almost certainly be used, but Ms Vermeylen said it is unclear yet how support for the next round of offshore windfarms in Belgium waters will be structured. The advent of zero-subsidy offshore windfarms in other countries also needs to be taken into account.

Although Mr De Backer has been fairly bullish on the idea of zerosubsidy tenders and has gone on record to the effect that new capacity will be offered via public tenders not backed by

Designated wind farms 1 Mermaid

Another looming issue to be addressed is what form future tenders for offshore windfarms will take and the selection criteria used

subsidies, the BOP believes much remains to be finalised and an agreement will be more nuanced than recent statements have suggested. “Every site for offshore wind is different,” she noted.

The situation is complicated by the fact that May 2019 will see a general election take place in Belgium, which might mean a decision on the exact make-up of the tenders is pushed to the right and nothing is agreed until after it has taken place.

The third issue affecting the development of offshore windfarms post2020 is one that has become an issue in several European countries, that is, grid connection. In November 2017, TSO Elia inaugurated the Stevin high-voltage line between Zeebrugge and Zomergem to transport energy generated by new offshore windfarms to the mainland and facilitate the exchange of energy with the UK via the Nemo interconnector from 2019 onwards.

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Designated zones for Belgian offshore windfarms – spatial planning for post-2020 windfarms could be tricky

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

The Stevin line will transmit electricity generated offshore to the mainland via a modular offshore grid (MOG) to be built by Elia 40 km off the coast that will bundle together cables from future Belgian offshore installations. Stevin will also enable other forms of sustainable generation in the coastal region to be connected to it and guarantee enhanced electricity supply in West and East Flanders. The MOG will connect offshore windfarms such as Rentel, Northwester 2, Mermaid and Seastar to the Belgian grid and could create opportunities for future offshore wind development and interconnections with neighbouring countries. It is due to become operational in Q3 2019 and Elia has already undertaken seabed survey campaigns to investigate soil conditions along the cable route and at the platform location.

Detailed design of the offshore platform is currently being undertaken, and other tenders for the main construction contracts are ongoing.

The problem is that Stevin is already “full” said Ms Vermeylen and a new grid connection is needed by the time the post2020 offshore windfarms are in operation – by 2025 at the latest.

“Marine spatial planning is difficult in Belgium,” Ms Vermeylen concluded.

“It will be difficult in the long run to find more space for offshore wind energy”. To get an idea of how small Belgium’s EEZ is, compare it with the Netherlands, where plans for offshore wind development are powering ahead. The Netherlands’ EEZ is 15.5 times larger. The future, she suggested, might therefore lie in trilateral ‘cluster’ projects of the type already being discussed

by Belgium with its near-neighbours the UK and the Netherlands. These include Nautilus, a second interconnector between the UK and Belgium, and a proposal to connect a large, upcoming offshore windfarm in UK waters to Belgium or the Netherlands. OWJ

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India AREA REPORT | 15

Indian prime minister Narendra Modi would like to see offshore wind power projects built off the costs of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu (photo: BJP)

Late 2018 award could kick-start new industry in energy-hungry India The Modi administration in India wants to build the country’s first offshore windfarms, but it needs to be re-elected next year for projects to proceed. There are also questions about the size of the first project, tariffs and affordability

C

ompared with some evolving markets, India’s plan for 5 GW of offshore wind energy by 2022 might not seem that ambitious, but the timetable it has set to achieve its ambition certainly is.

India has good reasons to be investing in new sources of energy. It has a population 1,324.2M, the second largest in the world.

GDP is growing rapidly, but it has an acute need for large-scale, clean energy generation to fuel its rapidly growing economy. In the period from 2011 to 2015 it invested US$46.9Bn in clean energy and currently has 313.86 GW of clean energy sources in one form or another. Renewable energy has a 16% share of the country’s overall energy market.

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the country’s commitment to green energy has been renewed. It already has the world’s fourth-largest

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onshore wind market, with an installed capacity of close to 33 GW, but Mr Modi sees offshore wind power playing an important role in India in future due to the large wind resources available near centres of high-energy demand.

India has also made strong commitments under the UN Paris Climate Agreement and announced ambitious renewable energy goals, targeting 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022. This target includes 60 GW from wind energy, some of which could be met by opening up the offshore wind segment, initially in two states, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.

As Charles Yates, founder of CmY Consultants told OWJ, in March 2018 the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy’s (MNRE’s) most senior civil servant told an EU workshop that the first offshore wind project in the country “will be awarded this year.” This project will be offshore Gujarat.

The MNRE’s long-term vision is for 35 GW of offshore wind in Gujarat and 30 GW in Tamil Nadu.

Mr Yates confirmed that a target of 5 GW by 2022 was expected to be in a white paper published this year, and a LIDAR system to measure the wind resource offshore Tamil Nadu was expected to be installed in August 2018. It is there that the second project will be installed, with expressions of interest for the Tamil Nadu project due in September 2019 with a tender process to start by December 2019.

Mr Yates said the Indian authorities want to start a dialogue with experienced developers to learn lessons from other countries, but for investors in Indian offshore wind projects the most important question is political support, at national and state level.

“It is not completely clear that this support exists at state level,” said Mr Yates.

“It also needs to be borne in mind that there

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

16 | AREA REPORT India

General Election April or May 2019

Gujarat expression of interest (Eol) (25/05/18) Presentation to MNRE (15/06/18)

(All dates are subject to change)

Eol results announced (29/06/18) Reverse auction (31/08/18)

MAY - JUN

JUL - AUG

2018 - 2019

SEP - OCT

NOV - DEC

JAN - FEB

MAR - APR

MAY - JUN

Tamil Nadu LIDAR installed (31/08/18)

JUL - AUG

SEP - OCT

Eol submitted (27/09/19)

NOV - DEC

Reverse auction (13/12/19)

Timeline for India's first two offshore wind projects (courtesy: ITP Energised/CmY Consultants)

will be a general election April or May 2019 and any dates expressed and the timetable for rolling out offshore wind energy in India are subject to change.”

Another issue he highlighted is tariffs.

“There are affordability issues to consider,” said Mr Yates. “It isn’t clear yet who will pay for these projects, what level of support they might secure in terms of a tariff and who will pay for the tariffs, whether the cost will be met by the national government or at least in part by the states in question.”

As Mr Yates also explained, preliminary discussions between the authorities in India and developers indicated that views about the level of support needed to realise projects diverge somewhat.

The government is interested in what it described as “affordable tariffs.” Developers highlighted the need to establish a supply chain in the country and are looking for higher tariffs.

Another issue he highlighted is that, whereas Mr Modi obviously wants to be seen to be doing something in offshore wind, the other main national party, the Congress Party, hasn’t said too much about it and other options exist. Solar power and onshore wind can also help India meet its targets for clean energy. “Onshore wind is very affordable too,” said Mr Yates.

At the moment the timeline for the projects is expected to see the results of expressions of interest in the Gujarat project announced at the end of June 2018. A reverse auction will take place in late August to select a developer. If

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

the Modi administration is returned to power next year, an auction for the project offshore Tamil Nadu is due to take place in December 2019.

The documents for expressions of interest in the project in Gujarat described a 1 GW project. It was issued to global entities that have installed more than 500 MW of offshore wind, and Indian wind turbine manufacturers/developers that have installed more than 500 MW and have a tie up with a global manufacturer/developer that has developed more than 500 MW. The windfarm site is 23-40 km from the port of Pipavav in the Gulf of Khambhat in a zone of around 400 km2. The plan is that a government agency will sign a 25-year power purchase agreement backed by a payment security mechanism. A government agency will provide the onshore transmission and offshore transmission will be the responsibility of the developer.

The Gujarat site has average speeds of 8.2 m/s according to the MNRE (less than 7.5 m/s likely) with silty, low-strength seabed on top of firmer clays and sand.

Water depths at the site are 15-30 m and the sea conditions are calm for all months except June/July/August. A grid connection is available at Pipavav, one of India’s main hubs for shipping.

Mr Yates told OWJ that after the expression of interest was issued there was a certain amount of ‘push back’ from developers and some stakeholders about the size of the project, which, in comparison with the first commercial-scale projects

carried out in other countries, is quite large.

As a result, an amended tender was issued that described a windfarm offshore Gujarat of 500 MW to 1 GW. The timetable for expressions of interest was also modified.

Although the tender specifies a project offshore Gujarat, Mr Yates also said it was possible that bids would also be submitted for projects in other areas in India’s territorial waters.

“Indian wind turbine manufacturer Suzlon has been feeling a certain amount of pain as a result of margin compression in onshore wind auctions in India,” Mr Yates explained. “It has become increasingly common for OEMs such as Suzlon to develop projects onshore and then sell them on, so it is not out of the question that something like this might happen.”

Mr Yates said data is available about the potential wind resource in areas other than Gujarat and could, potentially, be used for bids to build offshore windfarms.

If the Modi government is re-elected, and if the projects go ahead in their current form, there are also ambitious plans for the local supply chain. Initially, the biggest opportunities for Indian companies would be in foundation manufacturing – Indian companies already have a track record of manufacturing foundations for the offshore oil and gas industry. The country also has considerable engineering expertise and a long-established shipbuilding industry. Local players might be expected to assume key roles in operations and maintenance once windfarms are operational. OWJ

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18 | FOUNDATIONS

Fit-for-purpose foundations needed for larger turbines and deeper water

The foundations at the Blyth offshore demonstrator are of a new type and were floated into place, then submerged

With much larger turbines in development, the offshore wind supply chain needs to respond to the demands they will place on substructures and develop foundations that are cost-effective to manufacture and install. Solutions are at hand

I

n the long-term, floating foundations could dominate the market where water depths preclude the use of bottom-fixed foundations. However, in shallower water new and more capable bottom-fixed foundations will be required that can be installed quickly and easily with reduced environmental impact and manufactured cost-effectively in large numbers. Potential options include new and larger diameter monopiles, jackets and gravity-base foundations that can be floated into position and submerged.

One example of the shape of things to come can be found off the northeast coast of the UK at the newly-opened Blyth offshore demonstrator windfarm. Here EDF Group installed five turbines with a total generation capacity of 41.5 MW.

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

The test site was the first use of ‘float and submerge’ technology – in the form of gravity-based foundations – that many in the industry believe has significant potential to simplify installing foundations and turbines and reduce costs.

Installation using the new float and submerge technique was one of a number of EU-funded Demo Wind projects designed to test innovative technology.

The aim of the project was to validate the feasibility of float and submerge at all stages of the process, from manufacture and quayside construction to installation and operation.

The gravity-base foundations used in the project were manufactured at Shephard Offshore in the UK at a drydock and floated out in July 2017. They are now

in operation with MHI Vestas Offshore Wind’s V164 turbines.

The aim of the project was to move the gravity-based foundation and the float and submerge concept from technology readiness level 6 to 7, and to verify the manufacturing and installation methodology to optimise plans for future gravity-base foundations while comparing actual costs and performance with alternatives. The project partners believe the potential benefits include reduced installation costs, employing standard tugs and self-buoyancy rather than specialised vessels, and lower costs during the operational phase due to reduced inspection and maintenance. Another important benefit is that the foundations can be used at sites where piling is not technically feasible.

New foundations that are evidently quick – and therefore less expensive – to install and more environmentally friendly than those driven into the seabed have been given the ‘thumbs up’ by developer Vattenfall following their use at the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC).

Using a totally new type of foundation at the EOWDC was always going to be

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FOUNDATIONS | 19

potentially challenging but as the project progressed, installation of the suction bucket jacket foundations turned into one of the project’s biggest successes.

The novel foundation type supports a three-legged jacket which in turn supports a turbine. Unlike a conventional foundation, such as a monopile which is driven into the seabed using a pile driver, the suction bucket jacket can be installed without a pile hammer and without the underwater noise that pile driving causes, potentially affecting marine life.

The foundations are lowered into place from an installation vessel. Once in place on the seabed air and water are pumped out of the suction buckets, anchoring them in the seabed. It has the added advantage that, when the project is decommissioned, the installation process can be reversed, removing the entire foundation.

Vattenfall’s project director, Adam Ezzamel told OWJ, “There is no doubt about how well the suction bucket jacket foundations worked. It was a massive success for the project. There was undoubtedly a learning curve involved for the installation contractor, but I am in no doubt that they are quicker and easier to install than many other foundations.”

The EOWDC project may have been the first use of suction bucket jacket foundations, but their use is now spreading – April 2018 saw GeoSea’s vessel Innovation loaded with the first suction bucket jacket foundations for Orsted’s 450 MW Borkum Riffgrund 2 offshore windfarm in the North Sea. As the size of turbines grows and as water depths increase, so jacket foundations have also come into focus, as engineers at Atkins, part of the SNCLavalin Group, noted in a presentation at Global Offshore Wind 2018 in Manchester in June.

They have been examining the potential benefits of steel jacket structures founded on driven piles.

They found that this kind of structure is well-suited for use in the offshore wind industry, especially as turbines get larger and water depths increase.

However, although this has been used in the offshore oil and gas industry, in the offshore wind market their potential application differs in a number of important respects.

Atkins chief geotechnical engineer Sebastien Manceau and senior geotechnical engineer Robert McLean

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explained that, in the offshore wind application, the loading regime for jacket structures on driven piles would differ significantly from that in offshore oil and gas. In the renewables application the focus would be on the structure’s natural frequency and on fatigue-related issues. A production line approach for offshore wind – in which large numbers of identical units would be produced – would also be quite different from offshore oil and gas.

They noted that the selection of a reliable design method to assess pile axial capacity would be critical and, if done right, could lead to significant cost reductions. Another important area requiring further study is potential degradation of pile shaft capacity under cyclical loading. This would require careful assessment, they said.

As in the offshore oil and gas industry, said the Atkins engineers, pre-piling would be advantageous and enable standardisation of the jacket design through a ‘clustering’ approach which would also lead to fabrication and installation efficiencies. Clustering could be useful in other ways – clustering using variations of pile stick-up could be used to even out differences in water depth across a site.

Arup associate Stephen Downie told the conference that as the industry looks to 12-15 MW turbines (compared with the largest units currently, which are 8-9 MW), it would need to consider the effect of non-linear wave loading effects on larger monopile foundations, in particular a phenomenon known as ‘ringing’ that has a bearing on the ultimate design strength required in a foundation.

He explained that extreme wave loads on larger diameter monopile foundations – which might be more frequent in windfarms build farther offshore in deeper water – can significantly increase dynamic excitation of the structure due to ringing. He said although ringing is recognised as a potential effect in design specifications for monopiles for offshore wind such as DNV GL-ST-0126, conventional design techniques do not capture ringing response, the level of which has generally been acceptable in smaller diameter monopiles.

However, with the trend towards larger turbines and larger diameter monopile foundations, experience from the offshore oil and gas sector suggests that ringing could become an issue. “Most existing windfarms have avoided the need to

carry out detailed ringing assessments and the dominance of fatigue life in foundation design has also played a role in the limited attention ringing has seen to date,” he said.

“In future there will need to be more attention given to non-linear wave load effects that have the potential to become a governing factor in the design of monopile foundations.” He noted that the process adopted by the offshore oil and gas industry to address this issue relies on time-consuming and expensive analysis that is not practical for offshore wind due to the joint probability of wind and wave action. “An alternative method, with common acceptance by the offshore wind industry is needed,” he concluded. OWJ

The foundations at the EOWDC in Aberdeen Bay represent the first commercial use of the suction bucket jacket type

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

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OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE | 21

Digital doppelgangers could help maintain windfarms and reduce costs The concept of digital twins is growing in a number of industries. In offshore wind, it’s claimed, a digital twin could keep a windfarm operator informed about the performance of an asset and potential technical issues without an engineer having to access it

Providing technicians with access to offshore turbines is time consuming and expensive

M

uch of the focus on cost reduction in the offshore wind industry has been on developing larger, more powerful turbines, but as more offshore windfarms enter service attention has been brought to bear on operations and maintenance (O&M) and how significant O&M cost reduction really is.

One of the main cost drivers in offshore wind O&M is that most of the assets are far offshore. A windfarm consists of large numbers of discrete assets, each of which needs to be inspected.

But it takes time to transport personnel to a windfarm and provide them with a means of access to turbines. Weather conditions can prevent them from accessing a turbine or turbines at all. How much less costly might it be if a virtual model or ‘digital twin’ of assets offshore could be used to provide data about turbines’ performance and provide advance warning about potential issues?

By using digital twins, it is suggested, operators could be

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provided with up-to-the-minute data on how assets are performing rather than having to schedule regular shutdowns for inspection, the outcomes of which may result in unwelcome detection of faults that have developed unnoticed.

Just this kind of cost reduction potential is being addressed in a number of projects, among them the application of digital twin technology by Octue in the UK, a start-up founded in 2013 that is applying ‘intelligent digital twins’ to the challenges of windfarm O&M and working with the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult to do so.

Speaking at Global Offshore Wind 2018 in Manchester in June, Octue technical director Tom Clark explained that the main aim of the company’s intelligent twin for offshore wind turbines is to monitor and predict their behaviour, integrating many data sources and connecting many analyses together.

Key to the digital twin concept it is working on for offshore wind is what Dr Clark described as ‘frictionless learning’ and automated learning techniques that would allow what has been learnt to be translated seamlessly across an asset.

“The problem is,” he told delegates at the event, “collaborating means sharing sensitive data. We need to find a way to keep data controlled and ‘siloed.’ The good news is that, with the right system architecture, we can collaborate securely on data analysis and processing.

“Essentially, we’re looking at three key problems in digitalising a fleet of assets: the difficulty of collaborating between teams; how to share knowledge and training between assets; and how to keep sensitive data secure while enabling collaboration.”

If a solution to these challenges can be found, he suggested, data from different assets could be shared without running into commercial issues.

Dr Clark described using ‘component twins’ in which artificial intelligence (AI), simulation or mathematical modelling are used to predict and improve asset performance. Over time, this would enable better and better predictions of performance.

“Digital twins can be linked together and interchanged,” he explained, “and models can be improved, refined and changed. This would enable the transfer of generalised learning across assets and

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

22 | OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE

enable collaboration to build an overarching model.”

With Octue’s approach to digital twins, a network of components allowing reuse of component modules and transfer of learning between assets would enable detailed data to be built up that could predict performance, not just monitor and record it. And all of this would take place within a secure collaborative environment.

Something similar is being attempted in the WindTwin project, which is aiming to develop a digital platform that will ‘virtualise’ offshore wind assets as digital twins.

WindTwin is being developed specifically for the wind turbine industry. Like the work Octue is doing, it aims to reduce costs associated with operating and maintaining offshore wind turbines.

As with Octue’s work, the project partners also anticipate that digital twins can feed into the design of new products and support the development of more reliable wind turbines.

The project will harness digital twin technology in the form of a high-fidelity, digital software platform combining operational data with virtual system model data. To facilitate this, a sensor network utilising optimised signal processing and condition monitoring algorithms is being applied to live wind turbines to collect operational data which will interface with the digital twin. The output will be collated and processed data providing a description of a wind turbine’s dynamic behaviour and physical state during realtime, real-world operation.

A good example of how WindTwin might work is condition monitoring on a gearbox, which would be applied using sensors installed on the real-world turbine. The data collected would be processed and transferred to the digital twin continuously, resulting in a close to real-world digital twin of the wind turbine showing real-time performance.

The partners behind the WindTwin project, which is funded

by Innovate UK, anticipate that virtual models will allow windfarm operators to predict failure and plan maintenance, thus reducing maintenance costs and downtime.

The project will harness digital twin technology in the form of a high-fidelity software platform combining operational data with virtual system model data

The application of the WindTwin platform will include using data and knowledge-based tools and simulated testing of wind turbines before manufacturing. It will also use continuous predictive and preventive maintenance, condition monitoring of turbines, and power setting scenario analysis and analysis of wear and tear at different power outputs.

The partners in the WindTwin project believe the digital platform could reduce maintenance costs by up to 30% for end users and operators. They anticipate that early detection of defects will increase reliability by 99.5% and will reduce losses due to downtime by 70%.

Like Octue, the partners in WindTwin – ESI UK Limited, Dashboard Limited, Agility3 Modelling and Simulation, The Welding Institute (TWI) and Brunel University – are using a range of techniques to develop digital twins for offshore wind, including advanced sensors, high-performance cloud computing, system fault

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

Digital twins or ‘virtual models‘ of windfarms could reduce costs significantly, it is claimed, and feedback into product development

and degradation modelling, data analytics, and 3D visualisation to present data to windfarm owners and turbine manufacturers.

The data they collect is being integrated into a high-fidelity digital platform using advanced models that ensure a digital twin accurately represents the condition of the real-world asset in realtime. A turbine’s dynamic behaviour, performance and degradation effects are assessed by passing the data through mathematical models that compare it against given parameters, then display these changes or outputs through a virtual interface.

TWI senior project leader condition and structural health monitoring Ángela Angulo said she believes the data provided by the WindTwin digital software platform has the potential to provide the wind turbine industry with many benefits. “It will enable operators to diagnose performance variation in a windfarm right down to the component level, anticipate degradation and failures and enable the industry to implement condition-based maintenance instead of schedule-based strategies,” she said.

Other companies that specialise in this kind of technology are also targeting the offshore wind industry and other industries where large numbers of individual units and components need to be continuously monitored.

Among them is US-based ANSYS, which released the latest version of its software, ANSYS 19.1, in May 2018. The software is designed to enable product developers to accelerate development by rapidly building, validating and deploying simulation-based digital twins.

ANSYS 19.1 includes ANSYS Twin Builder, a product enabling customers to build, validate and deploy simulation-based digital twins. The company anticipates that it will have potential applications in the offshore oil and gas, energy, aerospace and defence industries.

“Traditional preventive maintenance for industrial assets leads to expensive and potentially unnecessary maintenance costs,” said ANSYS, echoing remarks by Dr Clark and the companies in the WindTwin project. “Those costs can be greatly reduced with a digital twin.

“The resulting intelligence and predictive maintenance insights enable engineers to analyse machines in real-world operating conditions and make informed decisions that substantially improve performance – reducing risk, avoiding unplanned downtime and enhancing product development with extremely accurate, individualised feedback about product behaviour.” OWJ

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PROJECT FOCUS | 25

Seabed conditions in Aberdeen Bay made careful preparation for the work of the jack-up vessel essential

Planning ahead speeds construction of UK test centre The European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre will test nextgeneration offshore wind technology. First power was transmitted on time despite adverse weather and a very tight timescale, as the project directors told OWJ

www.owjonline.com

A

court challenge, tight timescale, adoption of new technology, a challenging site with varying water depths and seabed conditions – even unexpected contamination found onshore where the substation for the project was to be built – were no obstacles to the development of the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre (EOWDC), which produced first power in July and was fully commissioned shortly afterwards.

Famous for the fact that the current incumbent of the White House, Donald Trump, launched a court case to try to prevent it being built, the EOWDC was fast-approaching completion in mid-

June, when OWJ spoke to Vattenfall’s project director, Adam Ezzamel. With the court case now a distant memory, the EOWDC is becoming rightly known for several world-firsts and for some important lessons learned during the construction phase.

As Mr Ezzamel explained, one of the biggest challenges to be overcome building the facility was that, by the time the court case had been resolved, there was very little time between the company’s final investment decision (FID), and a 30 September deadline for any windfarm seeking to be accredited under the Scottish Government’s enhanced renewables obligation certificate scheme

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

26 | PROJECT FOCUS

for offshore wind test and demonstration projects to be completed.

Two years is no time at all for a complex project using so much new technology, including the world’s most powerful offshore wind turbines, new 66 kV cables and potentially most challenging of all – at least so it seemed prior to the project getting under way – the first large-scale use of a new type of foundation for the turbines at the EOWDC, the suction bucket jacket foundation.

Located in Aberdeen Bay, the main aim of the innovative 93.2 MW, 11-turbine offshore wind project is to test nextgeneration technology and, once operational, boost the industry's drive to competitive clean power. It is not merely a testing facility however, and once operational will generate more than the equivalent of 70% of Aberdeen’s domestic electricity demand and 23% of the city’s total demand.

Construction of the facility began in October 2016 and at the time OWJ interviewed Mr Ezzamel most of the offshore work had been completed, bar installation of scour protection around the foundations. That the project has nearly been completed in such a short timescale is all the more remarkable given the sometimes-atrocious weather experienced earlier this year.

“It is true that we sometimes experienced quite long delays due to the weather,” Mr Ezzamel told OWJ. “There were long periods of time when easterlies plagued work at the site and made it very difficult. Foundation work and installation of the cabling offshore were affected, but we caught up and the performance of the contractors on the project, Boskalis and Swire Blue Ocean have been terrific.”

Using a totally new type of foundation was always going to be potentially challenging but as the project progressed, installation of the suction bucket jacket foundations turned into one of the project’s biggest successes.

The novel foundation type supports a three-legged jacket foundation which in turn supports a turbine. Unlike a conventional foundation, such as a monopile which is driven into the seabed using a pile driver, the suction bucket jacket can be installed without a pile hammer and without the underwater noise that pile driving causes and its potential adverse effects on marine life.

The foundations are lowered into place from an installation vessel – in this case Asian Hercules III. Once in place on the seabed air and water are pumped out of the suction buckets, anchoring them

in the seabed. Unlike pile driving, the process is virtually noiseless. It has the added advantage that, when the project is decommissioned, the installation process can be reversed, removing the entire foundation.

“There is no doubt about how well the suction bucket jacket foundations worked,” Mr Ezzamel told OWJ. “It was a massive success for the project. There was undoubtedly a learning curve involved for the installation contractor, but I am in no doubt that they are quicker and easier to install than many other foundations. It also helped a great deal that we carried out test installations using suction bucket jacket foundations in 2016 and 2017 and that we were well-prepared.”

This was borne out by the fact that the final foundation was installed in not much more than two hours, using the heavy lift vessel Aegir, operating in dynamic positioning mode.

A DP vessel isn’t essential to the process – some of the foundations installed earlier in the project using Asian Hercules III required an anchor spread, which took more time. Even with a less sophisticated vessel, if you take the time it took to install the anchor spread out of the equation the actual installation process took 2-4 hours, Mr Ezzamel explained.

Using a totally new type of foundation was always going to be potentially challenging

Asian Hercules III installs the first of the suction bucket jacket foundations

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

www.owjonline.com

PROJECT FOCUS | 27

The key to the process, he said, is that whatever vessel is used to install the suction bucket jacket foundation, a single lift is all that is required, unlike a monopile installation, which needs the foundation to be lifted from the deck of the vessel, up-ended, positioned – often using specialised equipment fitted to the vessel such as monopile upending tools – and then driven into the seabed, only after which is the transition piece and tower installed.

The jackets, which are between 68 m and 81 m high and weigh in excess of 1,300 tonnes, were constructed by Belgian-owned Smulders UK. As Mr Ezzamel explained, due to the particularly tight timescale for the project, some creative thinking was required to ensure it ran to schedule, so the steel for the foundations was ordered before the design process for them had been completed, to ensure it was available when needed. Smulders also began fabrication work before the detailed design of the suction bucket foundations was completed, to make sure they would be available and ready to be shipped when needed.

Although somewhat larger than earlygeneration turbines, MHI Vestas Offshore Wind’s V164 8.4 MW turbines proved relatively straightforward to install, said Mr Ezzamel. As he also noted, one of the ironies of the Trump challenges to the project and the delay that resulted from it is that Vattenfall was able to take advantage of newly-developed, more powerful turbines than would have been available had construction proceeded when originally planned. In fact, two of the 11 turbines installed off Aberdeen will be capable of 8.8 MW, this being the first time an 8.8 MW model has been deployed commercially in the offshore wind industry.

However, a lot of careful work and analysis went into ensuring the turbine installation vessel, Swire’s Blue Ocean’s Pacific Orca, could jack-up and then extract its legs from the varying seabed conditions that prevail at the EOWDC site.

Although small compared with a commercial-scale project that might have 100 turbines compared with the EOWDC’s 11, the water depths at the site vary and the subsoil varies a good deal too. Over what is a relatively small area, there are four different types of subsoil at the locations for the turbines, ranging from stiff clay underlain by different material to a much sandier substrate.

“We knew that the leg penetration into the seabed Pacific Orca would require when it jacked up could, potentially, be

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As of mid-June 2018, offshore work for the EOWDC was all but complete

problematic, given the differing subsurface conditions,” Mr Ezzamel told OWJ. The offshore industry is littered with instances of problems encountered when vessels jack-up, such as punchthrough, that is rapid penetration through a stronger soil layer overlying a weaker one, instances of problems when the seabed is uneven or when there are footprints from previous projects or when scour occurs.

Extracting legs from the seabed can also be problematic if conditions vary.

“At some of the locations where turbines were going to be installed the legs needed to penetrate to a depth of 22 m. That would make removing them from the seabed quite challenging, so we collaborated with Swire Pacific Offshore to develop a solution.” He explained this mainly involved strengthening the hull of the vessel in and around the jack-up legs to take account of potential non-linear forces imparted to it, and a thorough pre-installation analysis of conditions at the site of each turbine.

The contract to install the groundbreaking 66 kV inter-array and export cables for the Vattenfall project was awarded to VBMS, now part of Boskalis.

Cable manufacturer JDR supplied more than 20 km of inter-array and export cables for the test centre.

As highlighted above, cable lay operations were affected by the weather earlier in 2018, but otherwise installation of the 66 kV cabling has gone according to plan. From an installation and operational point of view, the 66 kV cable differs little from a conventional 33 kV cable although the termination for the cable is slightly different to its predecessors.

At the time of writing, work onshore was almost completed too. Work started on the onshore substation for the project in October 2016 with preliminary work constructing

the substation and associated cabling works at Blackdog in Aberdeenshire, and is on schedule to be completed as planned. This is despite construction company J Murphy & Sons, appointed by Vattenfall to deliver the onshore substation and the associated cabling, encountering asbestos and other potentially dangerous material at the former landfill site.

With the construction phase of the project approaching completion, the EOWDC will soon transition into the operations and maintenance (O&M) phase, for which an O&M facility has been built in a refurbished warehouse in Aberdeen Harbour. Windfarm technicians will be transported to and from the windfarm in a crew transfer vessel contracted from Windcat Workboats.

A programme of scientific work associated with the EOWDC has been underway for some time. “It is important to harness the EOWDC as an opportunity to conduct in-depth research into offshore wind at a full-scale, near-shore facility,” Mr Ezzamel concluded. “Each of the projects being undertaken has the potential to offer new insights into the sector,” he said.

They include a project that aims to provide information on the extent to which offshore windfarms influence salmon and sea trout, another that involves undertaking a comprehensive study of bottlenose dolphin movements throughout the development and operational phase of the EOWDC, a third measuring connectivity between bird special protection area populations and offshore windfarms, and one addressing the socioeconomic impact of offshore wind on the human environment that aims to help understanding of how offshore wind developments can maximise benefits to local and regional communities. OWJ

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

28 | FINANCE

‘CfD 2.0’ on the horizon as UK debates future support mechanisms The UK government’s commitment to hold regular auctions for renewable energy was excellent news for offshore wind, but as cost reduction continues and as the industry transitions to zero-subsidy projects undertaken at merchant risk, support mechanisms will need to evolve

ABOVE: Offshore wind is extremely capital intensive – merchant projects could be risky if they rely solely on the wholesale price of electricity

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

B

y the mid-2020s – possibly sooner – it is anticipated that offshore wind in the UK will be subsidy-free. In the nearer term, the government in the UK is undertaking a five-year review of its Electricity Market Review or ‘EMR’ and plans to carry out a formal review of the capacity market, a process that might or might not open it up to renewable energy technology.

So, whilst the commitment to biennial auctions and the pot of money that comes with it is very welcome, there’s no doubt that in the medium- to long-term, change is coming to offshore wind and the way it is supported.

Faced with impending change, the last six months have seen a lot of discussion in the industry about new sources of revenue for offshore wind, and whether it might compete in the capacity market or other segments of the electricity market that have long been the preserve of thermal generators.

However, the August 2018 commitment to biennial contract for difference (CfD) auctions and the money available for those auctions mean that in the short-term at least offshore wind seems unlikely to need to use the capacity market.

It had been argued that opening the capacity market to renewables would not only benefit consumers but help deliver

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FINANCE | 29

decarbonisation, but it now seems highly unlikely that offshore wind in particular will want to use the capacity market, at least for new plant, certainly as long as CfDs are available on ‘reasonable terms.’ However, as Aurora’s head of GB renewables, Hugo Batten told OWJ, as older offshore windfarms come to the end of their renewable obligation deals and CfDs, they could participate along with other by-then-unsubsidised renewables in the capacity market.

As Energy UK has argued, the CfD framework has been a successful tool for delivering investment and bringing forward low cost low carbon generation. “It is important that the CfD regime (based on competitive auctions) continues to maintain the momentum,” Energy UK argued in a May 2018 statement, noting that CfDs have providing an ‘enabling environment’ in which cost reduction targets for offshore wind of £100/MWhr were met four years ahead of target. In fact, the last auction saw clearing prices well below expectations at £57.50/MWhr. “In driving substantial cost reductions and stimulating innovation, the regime has benefitted the UK consumer and economy, delivering cost-effective decarbonisation. We therefore support the continuation of the CfD framework to provide the stable investment climate that developers and the supply chain need and believe that the five year review should focus on refinements to the scheme,” Energy UK said. “The introduction of a revenue stabilisation CfD is paramount in deploying the least cost, low carbon technologies to the benefit of the environment, economy and consumer.”

As RenewableUK head of policy Barnaby Wharton told the Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum Keynote Seminar, which took place in London in July, “lumpy policy kills industries.” Stable support allows them to thrive. Ask anybody in any industry what they most need and stable regulation, that enables steady growth and creates confidence among investors is

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surely at the top of the list.

Mr Wharton noted that in the UK, which has around 7.5 GW of operational offshore wind, 4.6 GW under construction and another 10 GW approved or in planning, a stable regulatory environment in the form of the CfD regime has created the conditions that have enabled the industry to thrive.

Green Investment Group head of policy Graham Meeks said the stable regulatory environment CfDs provided had delivered investment. “CfDs created volume, price certainty and stable revenue and enabled offshore wind to access a huge pool of capital. And the cost of that capital has fallen,” he told delegates.

But so much for the last several years. Times are changing, and offshore wind is quickly transitioning away from subsidies of the type in CfDs to a subsidy-free, merchant risk future when the wholesale price of electricity will play a growing role. “Will investors provide the same level of support for merchant risk projects? How will the cost of capital play out? How can we provide the same sort of security over revenues going forward,” Mr Meeks asked?

CfDs have been a huge success, but now, with the five-year review of EMR underway, opinion in the industry seems to have coalesced around the need for new type of CfD, one that would provide the same kind of stability going forward and facilitate investment but reflect the fact that offshore wind no longer needs the same level of support.

So what form might a ‘CfD 2.0’ take? Delegates at the Westminster event agreed that some form of revenue stabilisation mechanism or intervention is required, potentially a floor price for low-carbon generation, rather than straight subsidisation. Like ‘CfD 1.0,' a ‘revenue stabilisation CfD’ could help de-risk investment and reduce the cost of capital and provide the kind of stable, enduring regulatory regime that is required.

Wholesale market revenues under a subsidy-free, merchant based approach could be highly risky. Even as the cost of low carbon technology comes down, low marginal cost, high capex low carbon technologies are exposed to wholesale price fluctuations caused by fossil fuel price volatility. Conventional price-setting gas generation is not. That being the case, in order to compete on a level playing field these technologies need ‘technology agnostic’ revenue stabilisation contracts to be able to contribute to the longer term cost-effective decarbonisation.

Analysis by consultants such as Aurora Energy Research shows that, in the right circumstances, subsidy-free renewables could almost eliminate the need for high-cost gas-powered electricity generation. That will make it easier for governments to meet carbon targets, but the merchant nature of investment for subsidyfree windfarms would expose the market to increasingly complex drivers of capture prices – that is, the price an asset or technology actually achieves in the market.

As Cornwall Insight noted recently, the value earned from wholesale power is going to become increasingly important for renewables, but price cannibalisation will be a major complication.

This is because of the depressive influence on the wholesale electricity price at times of high output from intermittent, weatherdriven generation such as solar, onshore and offshore wind.

When there is a lot of wind in the system it tends to drive down the wholesale price – so much so that there is a risk of price cannibalisation – whereas, when the wind is not blowing, the wholesale price goes up. Contrast this scenario with the existing CfD regime, where generators are guaranteed a price for the power they produce, and the consumer effectively meets the difference

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

30 | FINANCE

between the wholesale price and the agreed ‘strike price.’

Power purchase agreements (PPAs) are an option in the long term but that market is not sufficiently developed to help meet renewable energy targets right now. Moreover, a company entering into a PPA might struggle to manage intermittency from renewables and there might not be many large enough to enter a PPA for a large offshore windfarm, so some form of intermediary would probably be required, Mr Batten said. .

All in all, there is a need for zero-subsidy offshore wind to find a way to reduce its dependence on the wholesale market.

There are potential solutions, but just as the CfD scheme has provided certainty, reduced risk and played a key role in the hugely successful roll-out of offshore wind in the UK, so a new arrangement will be necessary as offshore wind transitions to zero-subsidy CfDs. It seems likely there will need to be a mechanism – such as guaranteed top-up payments when the capture price is low – that provides a solution, at least in the short term.

All in all, there is a need for zero-subsidy offshore wind to find a way to reduce its dependence on the wholesale market Cornwall Insight’s head of research Ed Reed said he agreed that a CfD with a floor price could make zero-subsidy projects more attractive to investors and alleviate concerns about the effect of wholesale prices.

“There is a lot of interest in the renewable energy sector at the moment that subsidy-free investment could call forward significant renewable generation capacity, but we have cautioned that the outlook for wholesale power prices challenges these assertions,” he told OWJ. In its Wholesale Power Price Cannibalisation paper, Cornwall Insight detailed how the value earned from wholesale power is going to become increasingly important for renewables investments as subsidies are removed.

As highlighted above, price cannibalisation that arises from the influence on the wholesale electricity price at times of high output from intermittent, weather-driven generation – such as wind – leads to suppressed or sometimes negative wholesale power prices. The greater the fraction of output on the system to meet demand from intermittent generation at any given time, the greater this effect becomes.

“We are hearing that developers are being offered PPAs where price cannibalisation effects are already factored into the offer, which may be risking investment, and alternative approaches to underpin investment would likely be welcomed with open arms,” Mr Reed said. “Against this backdrop we have begun to explore how wholesale revenue stabilisation mechanisms will be necessary to attract investment in renewables while keeping consumer costs manageable.”

“For generation that is commercialised – by which we mean anything that can currently compete in an auction for a CfD – we see merit in developing a CfD floor price,” Mr Reed told OWJ. “Project finance banks will always want to de-risk wholesale price exposure. Under a floor price CfD, contracts would be

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

auctioned in the same way as today, but applicants would bid in the floor price, rather than the fixed price payment they require to make the project investable.

“If wholesale power prices fall below the floor price, then levy funded payments would be made to the recipient up to the floor.

Where wholesale power prices rise above the floor again, the recipient would not receive the positive difference until the gross value of payments received under the CfD had been reimbursed to the Low Carbon Contracts Company.

“The potential for investors to capture upside would likely mean a lower floor price would be acceptable than the fixed strike prices currently bid into CfD auctions.

“Investors are likely to view the floor level as the means to raise their target level of project finance debt,” said Mr Reed. “Only if wholesale power prices were drastically below the floor price for most of the 15-year CfD period would there be any serious risk of unrebated consumer costs. This is unlikely. In simple terms, investors would capture some upside with a safety net capable of raising debt, while consumers remain protected against rising levy costs in a rebate-style model.”

As Mr Reed noted, a Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy senior official recently confirmed there would be no changes to the CfD rules ahead of the next CfD auction in 2019, but with a longer-term review of the EMR under way, there will be an opportunity for the case for reform to be made.

Looking even further ahead, in the far long-term, the next generation of offshore wind – widely perceived to be floating offshore windfarms built further offshore, which will have much larger capacity than existing bottom-fixed windfarms, where more regular winds will reduce intermittency – could enhance its credentials as a form of generation.

“Floating offshore wind could also potentially have a role in the capacity market,” Mr Batten told the Global Offshore Wind 2018 conference, thanks to its high capacity factor and regularity. OWJ

Ed Reed: ”a CfD with a floor price could make zero-subsidy projects more attractive to investors”

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32 | SCOUR PROTECTION

Physical modelling essential to sorting out scour Scour protection can take many forms, ranging from rock to seabed mattresses

A

s offshore windfarms are built farther from shore, in deeper water, so the wind and wave loads on turbines have grown. Monopiles, which remain the foundation of choice for many if not all offshore windfarms, need to be installed and remain in place with very tight tolerances if the turbines they support are not to be adversely affected by these loads.

However, turbines, foundations, wind and wave loads and the nature of the seabed in which foundations are installed differ widely, making it essential that scour protection solutions are developed and tested on a case-by-case basis.

Without adequate protection in place, scour around foundations can adversely affect the overall ‘stiffness’ of a foundation and turbine, potentially leading to excessive vibration and failure, so developers are increasingly turning to research facilities in Europe that can model exactly the conditions that will prevail offshore.

They need to do so because although all turbine structures vibrate to some degree during operation, with the frequency of resonant vibration determined by the foundation, tower, nacelle and blade

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

Determining susceptibility to scour and using physical modelling to develop solutions is essential to protect turbines and other structures from excessive vibration, that could lead to damage and potential loss of revenue

dimensions and interactions of the foundation with the soil, the challenges associated with far-offshore windfarms are growing all the time.

The design process for a foundationtower-turbine system addresses this behaviour to determine the depth to which a foundation must be installed, but scour can cause the exposed length of the monopile at the seabed to change and can alter the frequency at which the system resonates. If, as a result, the turbine structure begins to vibrate excessively, it may need to be shut down, loss of revenue will occur and potentially significant remediation costs could be incurred. If a turbine affected in this way happens to be 60-70 km or more offshore, repairs to components and installation of scour protection can be very expensive.

The University of Oxford's Professor Byron Byrne, from the department of engineering science and HR Wallingford's chief technical director, sediment dynamics, Professor Richard Whitehouse, told the 9th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics that research exploring the interaction between scour,

foundation stiffness, and structural dynamic behaviour is “critical”.

Together they have undertaken experimental work on monopile foundation and tower-nacelle structures in HR Wallingford’s Fast Flow Facility. The flume tanks allow for realistic scour protection solutions to be developed, providing a means to explore the effectiveness of different remediation strategies for the sometimes challenging conditions found in the North Sea and elsewhere.

Leading windfarm developers such as Ørsted have used the facility to improve their knowledge of scour and scour processes that occur around foundations and to increase confidence in the performance of the scour protection.

A research project funded by Eon also provided insight into the effects of scour around the foundations of offshore wind turbines and provided insight on mitigation strategies. HR Wallingford’s work with Oxford University’s department of engineering science and Eon examined different forms of scour protection to assure the stability of monopiles and identified scour remediation strategies that would maintain foundation performance. The

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SCOUR PROTECTION | 33

project, Foundation response to scour protection, saw a number of physical experiments undertaken at HR Wallingford.

“We scaled monopile and turbine structures and exposed them to scour and erosion processes,” Professor Byrne explained. “We measured the structural dynamic responses, quantifying the amplification of the vibration as it changed with erosion at the base of the monopile and for different scour protection systems.”

Eon Climate and Renewables offshore foundation engineer Phillippa Cassie said, “By conducting this research, we are aiming to quantify the contribution of scour and scour protection measures in structural terms to inform proactive management of the operational fleet and designs on future projects.”

However, it is not just monopile foundations for turbines that need to be protected from scour, as research carried out by the University of Rostock and HR Wallingford demonstrated. Together the institutions have assessed the development of scour around jacket-type foundations as part of a research project funded by the German Government.

As they noted, the integrity of a substation jacket and its cables is vital to the operation of an offshore windfarm.

Failure or damage to the substation could mean lost transmission for the entire windfarm, with repair costs and loss of revenue running into tens of millions of euros, but physical model tests allow for the effects of scour to be accurately assessed under realistic conditions in the laboratory, which can be used to inform

and optimise jacket design.

Dr Peter Menzel from the sediment transport research group in the department of ocean engineering at the University of Rostock, said “For scour tests we provided two models of steel jacket foundations at a scale of 1:60. The data gathered in HR Wallingford’s facilities deepened our understanding of the effects of scour on substation jackets in the German sector of the North Sea, where substantial offshore wind development is both ongoing and being planned.”

HR Wallingford is acknowledged as a leader in the field of scour protection and physical modelling, but work is also ongoing at other research institutions, including the Environmental Hydraulics Institute of Cantabria (IHCantabria) where, in collaboration with Iberdrola Renovables and ScottishPower, work is under way to evaluate potential scour protection solutions for jacket-type foundations on the East Anglia One offshore windfarm in the UK. In these physical tests, the characteristics of the location at which the jackets will be installed is being simulated at a scale of 1:30. The experiments are being carried out in the Cantabria Coastal and Ocean Basin (CCOB) at IHCantabria, a facility that has a multi-directional wave generator, portable wind generator and a current generator that allows for any floating or fixed offshore foundation to be tested.

To maximise the efficiency of the physical experiments, two jacket foundations with different scour protection systems were tested simultaneously in the CCOB. The

protection for the first jacket foundation was a ‘frond mat’ system developed by UK-based Seabed Scour Control Systems; the second was a system consisting of conventional rock protection. The aim of the test was to compare the performance of the scour protection systems and collect data for the definition of monitoring and maintenance requirements.

During the physical experiments, the interaction between the jacket foundation, the scour protection and the seabed were evaluated under several combinations of wave and current conditions. Because of the presence of sand waves in the area in which the windfarm will be built, physical experiments were also carried out reproducing their presence.

New approaches to scour protection are among the new technology that will be tested on the Borssele V offshore wind innovation site in the Netherlands. The Two Towers consortium, consisting of Van Oord, Investri Offshore and Green Giraffe, recently won the tender for Borssele V windfarm. MHI Vestas Offshore Wind is the preferred supplier for the wind turbines.

Borssele V, designated as an innovation site, is situated in site III of the Borssele windfarm zone. The offshore windfarm is located more than 20 km off the coast of Zeeland, the Netherlands, and will consist of two turbines, each of 9.5 MW. The project will see a new type of scour protection used on the seabed, including a new concept that will see part of the scour protection system for the project forming an artificial oyster reef, which will promote species diversity. OWJ

Physical modelling, as here at IHCantabria, is essential if scour-related problems are to be avoided

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Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

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SURVEY | 35

Cost-savings arise as crew transporters double-up as survey ships An innovative approach to carrying out seabed surveys pioneered on wpd’s Nordergründe offshore windfarm is being rolled out on the Butendiek, Dan Tysk and Sandbank offshore windfarms

ABOVE: Deutsche Windtechnik has modified two crew transfer vessels to act as survey units

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R

egular inspection of the seabed is essential to detect anomalies and help prevent damage to cables and scour protection around offshore structures.

It is even more important on a windfarm such as Nordergründe, in the Weser estuary, where seabed conditions can change quickly.

Regular surveys of the seabed are mandated by the authorities – in Germany the agency is the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency or Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie (BSH) – but conducting surveys using specialised survey vessels is not cheap, particularly if a survey vessel needs to be called in at short notice, such as following a storm.

How much more cost-effective might it be, thought Deutsche Windtechnik – which specialises in maintaining and repairing wind turbines on land and at sea – if vessels that were already on the windfarm could conduct the surveys?

The answer, it seems, is very cost-effective, because the concept the German firm adopted – using crew transfer vessels (CTVs) fitted with a multibeam sonar – is going to be used on other German offshore windfarms, and could have export potential too.

As Deutsche Windtechnik managing director, the Netherlands, Geert Timmers, and Deutsche Windtechnik Offshore und

Consulting managing director Carl-Rasmus Richardsen explained, the concept they pioneered arose from a simple idea: why not modify a couple of CTVs so that they can be fitted with a sonar and have them use idle time on a windfarm to provide regular, detailed surveys?

By upgrading the CTVs, underwater surveys can be combined with other offshore tasks the vessels are already undertaking. “Combining tasks allows us to be more flexible,” said Mr Richardsen.

“In addition to cost savings, our customers benefit from expertise from a single source and lean, integrated processes.”

“The conditions on Nordergründe are known to be quite challenging,” Mr Timmers told OWJ. “Being where it is, close to the mouth of the Weser, leads to the creation of sand waves. This means the water depth can sometimes change by several metres in a way that is rare on other windfarms. Equally, scour can occur and cables can become exposed.”

Deutsche Windtechnik and shipowner Mainprize Offshore Ltd modified two CTVs – MO2 and MO4 – so that they could deploy a sonar through a moonpool.

The sonar is a multibeam unit from Kongsberg Maritime. It can be used to detect sand waves, scour and debris on

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

36 | SURVEY

the seabed if, for instance, a jack-up vessel needs to know that it can safely deploy its legs. Since the sonar was acquired, M02 and M04 have used it to keep an eye on potential scour around the foundations for the wind turbines and substation on Nordergründe, to see if conditions have changed from year to year.

The cable routes in the offshore windfarm have also been carefully surveyed with particular attention to cable entry points and cable cover on the seabed.

Bathymetric data can now be compared on a regular basis and the depth of the trench in which cables are laid assessed. When determining the depth of the trench it is important to ensure the cable only exits the seabed at the entry points into a turbine or the substation. An unprotected cable poses a significant risk. Once the vessels are in the area to be surveyed the sonar is deployed through the moonpool. With assistance from Kongsberg Germany, Deutsche Windtechnik has trained personnel to operate it. It does not need to be in position underwater while the vessel is in transit. The survey head is lifted back into the vessel once a survey has been completed, so there is no question that operation of the CTV might be affected or its fuel consumption increase.

A motion reference unit from Kongsberg Seatex compensates for the movement of the vessels when undertaking surveys.

Apart from meeting statutory requirements, Mr Timmers observed, it is also in the interests of the owner of a windfarm to ensure that everything under the water is in order. The output from the surveys is tailored to meet the specific

requirements of the customer.

“Some clients might simply want assurance that everything on the seabed is as they would wish it to be,” Mr Timmers explained. “For clients who want to see more, we can produce a range of services from raw data and interactive data to charts showing them what’s going on on the seabed.” After preliminary processing, data can be accessed via Deutsche Windtechnik’s online portal. “If something is detected, we can also suggest appropriate repair solutions,” Mr Timmers told OWJ. Interestingly, Deutsche Windtechnik believes the survey solution it developed for German waters – and the ‘cluster approach’ it has adopted to sharing the survey assets across a number of offshore windfarms since it was first used on Nordergründe – could be highly applicable in other markets, such as Taiwan, one of the fastest growing offshore wind export markets. “A number of the windfarms that are going to be built offshore Taiwan will have many of the same issues as those we’ve already addressed on Nordergründe,” said Mr Timmers.

Bibby HydroMap invests in autonomous technology UK-based Bibby HydroMap has partnered with iXblue to bring ‘DriX,’ an autonomous unmanned surface vessel (AUSV), to the European market.

Designed with an innovative hull shape optimised for coastal and offshore missions, and manufactured using composites, DriX can operate for seven days, providing data acquisition at speeds of up to 14 knots. Multiple navigation options are also available ranging from full autonomy, to autopilot, remote supervisor action, a ‘follow-me’ function and a ‘hovering’ mode, all of which comply with collision regulations.

Initially mobilised with a dual-head Teledyne Reson SeaBat T50 integrated multibeam echosounder, DriX has been available to Bibby HydroMap’s existing and new customers from June 2018 and will offer increased production and productivity during survey data acquisition.

DriX will be used to supplement existing survey capability across projects undertaken

by Bibby HydroMap, and performance information will form part of the continued development of the asset. OWJ

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

ABOVE: Enabling CTVs to act as survey ships gives them a dual role and reduces costs

Fugro returns to Hornsea zone In June 2018, Fugro commenced marine site characterisation work at the Hornsea Two offshore windfarm in the UK. The contract, awarded by Ørsted, covers geotechnical site investigation and follows other contracts awarded earlier this year for geophysical investigation services at the site.

Geotechnical data acquired by Fugro will support developing the ground model, assist design activities for the turbine foundations and inform cable route design at the Hornsea Project Two and Hornsea Project Three sites.

Fugro’s work scope includes seabed and downhole geotechnical investigations that will be undertaken using state-of-the-art equipment from Fugro’s specialist vessels.

“We’re delivering this offshore project using our new Seacalf Mk IV system for seabed cone penetration testing,” explained project manager Dennis van den Bulk. “Unlike conventional rod systems, it combines safer and more weather-tolerant operations with higher quality data by eliminating manual rod handling and its constant penetration speed. This approach means we can provide an efficient solution to meet project milestones while improving safety performance.”

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ANALYSIS | 39

From electrons to molecules – hydrogen’s potential role in the offshore wind revolution Hydrogen could be the key to unlocking the full potential of offshore wind in the North Sea say advocates of power to gas technology of the type to be tested in a project in Belgium

H

Hydrogen has potential applications in transport and as a fuel for heating, and is widely used in the chemical industry

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ydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, although on Earth it is usually found in combination with oxygen in water and in other compounds. Once separated from the other elements it is an ideal energy carrier and the chemical element with the highest energy density. It can be produced from a range of compounds, including natural gas and biomass, or from water by electrolysis, using electricity.

Currently, most hydrogen is produced from natural gas, but it has been recognised for some time that producing it by electrolysis using renewable power is a potential way to store energy from intermittent sources, such as wind.

Using hydrogen in this way could also provide an alternative to batteries to store excess energy from wind. In many countries, electricity grids do not have the capacity to handle future demand.

Hydrogen produced using renewable energy could provide a way around that.

It could also be injected into existing gas grids, it is suggested, and could get around the need for a connection to the electricity grid where this is problematic. Hydrogen produced using renewable energy could also be used in transport and as a fuel for heating, either blended with natural gas or neat. It is also widely used in the chemical industry and seems set to play a growing role in the economy as a whole.

Offshore wind energy is growing at a tremendous rate and taking off in many countries, reinforcing the potential opportunity to use electricity from offshore wind in so-called power to gas projects producing hydrogen. In fact, late 2017 saw the World Energy Council (WEC)

release a report in which it claimed that hydrogen ‘could be the key to unlocking the full potential of the North Sea offshore wind industry.’

“Recently we have seen a great focus on offshore wind generation in the North Sea and capacity is rapidly increasing.

However, various pathways to bring the power generated to the consumer efficiently are needed,” said the WEC. “This urgency is driven not only by the timelines set out by the Paris Agreement, but also by storage requirements and finding ways to enable the decarbonisation of industry and transportation.”

Its report, Bringing North Sea energy ashore efficiently takes the rapidly increasing offshore wind capacity in the North Sea as a starting point. Coupled with demand on shore, it showed that a number of technologies needed in order to bring energy to the consumer in the most efficient way.

The study looked at two pathways: an electrons (power) pathway, and the ‘molecules’ pathway, with a focus on hydrogen. The study concluded that a combination of both will be needed.

“Hydrogen from power to gas technology would be an important way to improve security of supply, while reducing CO2 emissions in sectors which would otherwise be difficult to decarbonise,” the WEC said. “If produced at a large enough scale, it could become an affordable alternative to fossil fuels.”

Numerous pilot projects in Europe have already demonstrated the ability to produce hydrogen using clean energy from onshore wind, and Eoly, part of Colruyt Group in Belgium, Fluxys and

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

40 | ANALYSIS

offshore wind developer Parkwind recently started work on an industrialscale power to gas project that will use offshore wind. Together, they plan to convert green electricity from offshore wind into hydrogen that can be transported and stored in Belgium’s natural gas infrastructure.

Unlike other demonstration projects elsewhere in Europe, Eoly, Parkwind and Fluxys are planning a commercialscale project and aim to build a power to gas facility that can convert several megawatts of electricity from offshore wind into hydrogen which can be marketed as carbon-free fuel or feedstock. They also plan to use the project to demonstrate that production of hydrogen by power to gas can offset the variability of renewable energy production, such as from offshore wind.

Together, the partners in the project will explore the ability of power to gas to offset the variability of power from offshore wind and provide support services to the grid.

Hydrogen produced in the project will be transported and stored in the existing natural gas infrastructure, reducing the use of natural gas as a source of energy for heating, transport and industry.

Interest in using green electricity from offshore wind has also been expressed elsewhere. The world’s leading offshore wind developer Ørsted is understood to be looking at a pilot project in Germany, and in the UK, the world’s largest offshore wind market, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers recently released a report that said the UK’s power system could become greener and more efficient if excess generation from renewable sources was used to create hydrogen that could be used to heat homes or to provide power for transport, or be injected into the gas grid in lowhydrogen concentrations. The report further suggested that such a system of energy storage could be more efficient than other solutions, such as batteries.

Grid connection

Colruyt’s regulatory and public affairs advisor Jan Van Den Bulcke told OWJ the partners in the Belgian project plan to use it to test the technical and economic feasibility of power to gas using offshore wind. “We will be looking at whether there is a market for hydrogen produced in this way, focusing initially on potential users in the Port of Zeebrugge,” he explained. “In the longer term we

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

Graham Cooley: “hydrogen can store power from renewable energy for long periods of time and has huge potential”

are also looking at how hydrogen from offshore wind might provide grid services and, working with Elia, the transmission system operator (TSO), are examining the feasibility of grid connection.”

Hydrogen from offshore wind energy could one day play a role in providing services to TSOs, he suggested, including what are known as ancillary services, that is, services above and beyond generation and transmission, provided to a system operator in order to facilitate and support the continuous flow of electricity so that supply will continually meet demand.

Assuming that it successfully passes main ‘gate’ approvals in the next couple of years, construction of the Belgian project could get under way in the early 2020s.

In September 2017, the Dutch gas grid operator Gasunie joined the North Sea Wind Power Hub, a consortium that already included electricity and gas grid operators: TenneT Netherlands, TenneT Germany and Energinet. Together they are exploring power to gas solutions that could be used on ‘power link’ islands built in the North Sea. The consortium’s plan is based on the fact that the volume of offshore wind energy required for the energy transition is so large that gasbased transmission and storage solutions will need to be deployed in addition to electrical connections.

They highlighted the fact that the cost of storing and transmitting energy from offshore wind in the form of gas is “considerably lower per unit of energy than if the energy is transmitted and stored in the form of electricity.”

Gasunie will contribute its expertise in the transport and storage of gas via interconnected international grids and managing the balance between the supply

of and demand for energy. The company is also developing expertise in the use of renewable gases such as hydrogen, and is looking into various conversion processes, including the production of hydrogen by power to gas.

“Conversion into hydrogen is expected to play an important role in the North Sea Wind Power Hub,” said the consortium. “It will enable windgenerated energy to be stored in the form of gas offshore, then brought ashore via existing offshore gas infrastructure.”

Long-term storage

Experience from other power to gas projects undertaken in the UK and elsewhere also suggest that turning electrons into molecules could provide an efficient way to store and transmit energy from offshore wind.

In April 2018, Northern Gas Networks (NGN) hailed the results of a power to gas feasibility study as a ‘compelling step forward for the future of UK energy storage.’ A collaborative desktop study, funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and led by Sheffield-based energy and clean fuel company ITM Power, used network planning models and data from the gas distributer for the North of England.

Speaking to OWJ in July, ITM Power chief executive Graham Cooley said another important potential advantage of using hydrogen to store power from renewable energy was its ability to do so for long periods of time, much longer than is possible with batteries. He said the use of hydrogen as a long-term energy carrier had “huge potential.”

Dr Cooley also highlighted the potential to use existing gas infrastructure in the North Sea and said his company had already held discussions with leading offshore wind developers. This echoed the findings of a study by the Energy Delta Institute (EDI). The EDI study found that the economics of offshore energy conversion, converting offshore wind energy into hydrogen on existing oil and gas platforms in the North Sea, was “economically promising”.

ITM Power and other companies active in the hydrogen industry have developed a range of electrolysers that could be used. ITM Power specialises in proton exchange membrane electrolysers, which Dr Cooley said were ideal for use with intermittent power supplies.

In the long-term, he suggested,

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ANALYSIS | 41

electrolysers could be integrated with new-generation multi-megawatt turbines in order to produce hydrogen offshore. The company’s HGas product brings together rapid response and self-pressurising PEM electrolysis into an integrated package capable of addressing MW-scale applications whilst accommodating fluctuating power profiles.

Dr Cooley rejected suggestions that have been made that electrolysers are currently too expensive, although electrolysis is seen as a much more expensive method of hydrogen production than other techniques such as steam methane reforming. Other sources suggest that large-scale production of electrolysers would reduce costs to a point that power to gas would become economic.

A white paper produced by DNV GL on behalf of the European Power to Gas Platform that was published in September 2017 concluded that power to gas could enable optimised infrastructure investments that are necessary to integrate large amounts of fluctuating renewables into the energy system. It said doing so could reduce the need to extend and upgrade the electricity network to transport large amounts of locallyproduced energy to other locations, by making use of capacity in the existing gas networks. It made Dr Cooley’s point that in the form of hydrogen “energy can be

stored long-term.”

It also highlighted the fact that hydrogen from renewable power to gas is a carbon-free fuel and feedstock that can support the decarbonisation of the transport sector and energy-intensive industries and that power to gas can help to reduce the carbon intensity of the gas sector thereby ensuring its relevance for the future energy supply.

“From a technological perspective, power to gas is ready for commercial exploitation,” it concluded. “However, the challenge is to quickly reach an industrial scale that is economically exploitable.

This depends heavily on the market conditions for the different applications.

Significant cost reductions and efficiency improvements are required to enable its deployment on a commercial scale.”

In a May 2018 comment, International Energy Agency senior renewable energy analyst Cédric Philibert also highlighted offshore wind’s potential role in the production of hydrogen via electrolysis.

He noted that apart from reducing carbon emissions compared with gas reforming of hydrogen generation, power to gas from offshore wind could provide other benefits, including greater energy security, and lower price volatility. In addition, procuring clean hydrogen-rich chemicals and fuels from the deployment of renewables in areas with good wind resources, such as North Africa, could represent a welcome diversification of energy imports.

In this context, he said, Europe might

follow a twin track policy. First, accelerate deployment of offshore wind power and the electrification of European industries, directly with efficient electric heating and process technologies, and indirectly through hydrogen production. Secondly, initiate conversations with neighbouring countries with wind resources (and potential investors) on renewable capacities, conversion plants and other infrastructures from which a trade in hydrogen-rich chemicals and fuels could develop, for the benefits of both exporting and importing countries. OWJ MAIN IMAGE: offshore wind has potential to provide significant amounts of clean power to industry via hydrogen

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TURBINE TECHNOLOGY | 43

Direct-drive offshore wind turbines make use of rare-earth metals about which cost and supply concerns abound

Ferrite-based direct drive developer looks for partners – in Europe and elsewhere The first company to develop a credible ferrite-based direct drive permanent magnet generator for wind turbines believes the concept could enter production in as little as three years – depending on where commercialisation takes place

L

ate 2018/early 2019 will see a UK firm test a new, larger version of the direct drive permanent magnet generator (DD PMG) it has developed as it searches for investors – and a turbine manufacturer – with which to work on the industrialisation of the machine.

Essex firm GreenSpur Renewables hopes to eliminate costly rare-earth magnets from direct drive turbines and is developing a new type of generator that could help reduce the cost of wind energy. It believes its innovative technology is capable of delivering a generator capex reduction of 33% compared to current designs.

Direct-drive generators are an increasingly widespread feature of offshore wind turbines as operators shy away from gearboxes.

However, the generators’ need for rare-earth magnets – which are mainly produced in China – means they are an expensive alternative, with the market effectively subject to a monopoly. This is something OEMS have already recognised, with Siemens Gamesa highlighting that the permanent magnet generator in its 8/9 MW offshore turbine has a lower operating temperature, which reduces the amount of rare-earth material needed in the new unit.

Rare-earths will be required for a long time to come, however, and with help from the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult (ORE Catapult) and funding from Innovate UK, GreenSpur Renewables is currently building a 250-kW demonstrator that is rare-earth free that will be tested at the ORE Catapult on its test rig. This 250-kW

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machine is due to be completed and ready for tests in Q4 2018.

After forming a working relationship, the company tested a scale 75-kW generator at ORE Catapult’s test rig in Blyth in Q4 last year. It then signed an agreement with ORE Catapult and Warwick Manufacturing Group to build the 250-kW direct drive generator, with the support of a £1.25M (US$1.65M) grant award from Innovate UK. Working with the ORE Catapult, GreenSpur Renewables is hoping to develop a UK-based supply chain and plans to establish a manufacturing operation within three years. Scaling up short-term production in the UK could create hundreds of new jobs. If the technology is deployed at the 2 GW to 3 GW scale it could lead to the creation of over 3,000 new UK jobs, it is claimed.

As Andrew Hine, executive director at the British company told the Global Offshore Wind 2018 conference in Manchester in June, apart from direct drive generators relying on rareearth magnets produced mainly in one country, there is also competition for magnet supply from other fast-growing industries, including defence, computing and electric vehicles.

Added to this, extracting and processing these metals is environmentally damaging.

Mr Hine told the conference that GreenSpur Renewables is working on a generator that uses ferrite magnets, which are abundant, considerably less expensive and can be manufactured in the UK,

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

44 | TURBINE TECHNOLOGY

opening up the potential for significant job creation and investment.

Apart from not using rare-earth materials, unlike other direct drive machines it is an axial flux machine, rather than a radial-flux generator as used in most direct drive multi-megawatt-class turbines.

The rotors carry the generators' permanent magnets while the coils are embedded within the stators, sandwiched by the rotors. The magnetic design ensures the generator operates smoothly and silently.

For obvious reasons, the company is unable to go into too much detail about the design of the ferrite-based DD PMG but has confirmed that a novel arrangement for the magnets is one of the key features. Electromagnetic test results on the new concept have been endorsed by Warwick Manufacturing Group, with whom GreenSpur Renewables continues to work, and the generator design has been validated by DNV GL. GreenSpur has also filed seven patents in relation to its design.

When it started work on the new concept in September 2014, GreenSpur was aware there had been a market move towards direct drive permanent magnet generators, partly to stimulate cost reduction.

Conventional wind turbines use a gearbox to convert the slow rotational speed of the rotor blades up to a sufficiently high rpm to drive conventional generators. With the absence of a gearbox, DD PMGs need a large diameter to achieve an adequate translational speed between the generator’s stator and its rotor to generate an adequate electrical power output. This necessitates building large cross-section nacelles to house generator components. A lesser, but relevant consideration is the transportation challenge associated with delivering large and heavy generator components to site. However, Mr Hine and his colleagues were aware that although they have many advantages compared to geared turbines, the market-leading DD PMGs being developed were reliant on using scarce and expensive rare earth magnets.

In 2015 annual production of the rare-earth elements neodymium and dysprosium – used in the manufacture of the rareearth magnets – was estimated at 35,900 tonnes and 1,902 tonnes respectively. By contrast, ferrite magnets of the type that GreenSpur Renewables is working on are made from iron ore, an abundantly available material. It is estimated that worldwide reserves of iron ore amount to 800Bn tonnes.

High growth forecasts for the global offshore wind market is likely to create strong demand for DD PMGs. To meet rising demand, it is predicted that by 2025 DD PMGs could require 35% of global rare-earth magnet production. This could result in significant price hikes and long supply lead times, particularly if competing with more influential industries, such as defence which also requires additional supplies of rare earth magnetic materials.

Although rare-earth magnets are more powerful than their ferrite counterparts, they are 30 times the price by weight of commonlyavailable ferrites, so magnet costs could be reduced to one tenth of current levels.

Mr Hine told the conference that by using a low-cost and abundantly available material capable of delivering an equivalent output at a comparable weight, GreenSpur hopes to significantly expand the future market for large-scale DD PMGs. GreenSpur believes that, to some extent, designers of existing DD PMGs have been seduced by the power of neodymium boron iron (NdFeB) magnets, which are three times the strength of standard ferrite magnets. However, as Mr Hine also told the conference, there are problems associated with using rare-earth magnets. Apart from being subject to high demand, they are expensive. In the case of some rare-earth magnets, to ensure they can operate safely at raised temperatures, they must be dosed with

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

GreenSpur tested a 75-kW generator at ORE Catapult’s test rig and plans to test a large direct drive generator

dysprosium, which heightens the security of supply risk.

Further practical difficulties relate to the generator assembly processes. NdFeB needs to be handled with extreme care and is vulnerable to corrosion in seawater atmospheres. They can also demagnetise if safe operating temperatures are exceeded (160°C). By contrast, ferrite magnets are inert and can operate at temperatures of up to 460°C. The GreenSpur team went back to basics and looked at the design of a new ferrite-based DD PMG from first principles and is already confident it can be scaled to multi-MW levels and that a 15-MW unit could be available in five years.

“At the moment we are working towards a 15-MW design,” said Mr Hine, “however, with the right partnerships and manufacturing relationships in place it would be possible to go significantly beyond 15 MW, but to do so would obviously need to be linked to market demand,” and herein lies a choice for the company.

Speaking to OWJ after the conference, Mr Hine explained it has already had informal contact with leading turbine OEMs and wanted to find one with which to commercialise the concept. It also needs to find engineering partners and investors to help take the DD PMG concept to the next stage.

Mr Hine anticipates that European OEMs would probably be more cautious partners. Until such time as rare-earth costs rise significantly, or a supply crunch occurs, they could remain wedded to existing technology. Working with European partners it might take five years to make the ferrite-based DD PMGs available commercially, he said.

That might not be the case if the company were to find a partner in other countries, which is where the ORE Catapult’s relationship with China comes in. In 2017, it signed an agreement with China’s Tus-Wind to work together to advance offshore wind technology.

Collaboration between innovative small businesses and universities is at the heart of the agreement, under which the companies will, among other things, establish a UK-China Technology Growth Accelerator to boost UK SME technology innovation and deployment in the Chinese offshore wind market.

If commercialisation of the axial flux DD PMG were to take place in association with a Chinese turbine company, ferrite generator technology could be available somewhat sooner, he concluded. OWJ

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COST REDUCTION | 47

Consistent policy will continue to drive cost reduction in the UK A commitment to hold regular auctions for renewable energy every two years will help drive further cost reduction in the UK᾽s world-leading offshore wind industry

A

TOP: Benj Sykes: “in addition to cost-effectively reducing carbon emissions, offshore wind is powering the clean economy, bringing investment, jobs and supply chain opportunities” BOTTOM: Claire Perry: “regular auctions will encourage long-term investment to help further reduce the cost of energy”

www.owjonline.com

s highlighted in a recent comment on the OWJ website, lumpy policy kills industries. Stable support allows them to thrive. Ask anybody in any industry what they most need and stable regulation that enables steady growth and creates confidence among investors is surely at the top of the list.

That was certainly the key message that came through loud and clear at the Westminster Energy, Environment & Transport Forum Keynote Seminar, which took place in London on 12 July 2018. Stable policy and regulation support the expansion of renewable energy and help to drive down costs, so the UK Government’s decision to commit to holding biennial auctions for renewable energy, announced a matter of weeks after the event, was especially welcome, and has been applauded throughout the offshore wind industry.

The announcement follows last year’s successful CfD auction which saw the cost of power from new offshore windfarms fall by 50%, making it one of the cheapest options for new power in the UK – lower than the cost of new gas and nuclear power.

As Kenneth Addly and Alexander Hadrill, lawyers at Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner explained on the OWJ website, offshore wind is likely to dominate in the biennial auctions that seem likely to take place in 2019, 2021, 2023 and, potentially 2025. That gives industry just the right kind of signal it needs – that there will be sufficient volume of work in the next decade to make investing in developing new technology worthwhile. Cost reduction of the type that has already spurred the roll-out of offshore wind

energy in the UK will continue apace as a result.

The clear pipeline of projects provided by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy could allow for as much as 8 GW of offshore projects to be built in the UK. To put it in perspective, at the time of writing, the UK had installed around 7.5 GW. Over the period that that 7.5 GW has been built, costs have fallen by 50-60%. A commitment to another 8 GW will enable them to fall even further.

British success story

Announcing the commitment, UK energy and clean growth minister Claire Perry said regular auctions will encourage long-term investment to help further reduce the cost of energy.

Announcing a raft of measures on a visit to the Offshore Renewables Catapult, the minister said “For the last decade the offshore wind industry has been a great British success story, increasing productivity, raising earnings and improving lives in communities across the UK. Today the sector gets the certainty it needs to build on this success through the next 10 years.

“With wind turbines already providing 15% of the UK’s electricity, today’s fresh vote of confidence in the sector will secure its position as a global leader in a thriving industry, enhance confidence and encourage businesses to make long-term investment."

Responding to the decision, Offshore Wind Industry Council and UK country manager at Ørsted, Benj Sykes said, “As well as cost-effectively reducing carbon emissions to meet our climate change targets, the offshore wind industry is

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

48 | COST REDUCTION

powering the clean economy, bringing investment, skilled jobs and supply chain opportunities to businesses up and down the UK. “Our sector has proposed a transformative ambition to deliver at least 30 GW by 2030, enough to meet more than a third of the country’s electricity needs, which in turn could increase exports five-fold, create thousands of skilled jobs and reduce electricity system costs.

Today’s announcement is a vote of confidence in our industry and will directly enable more investment in the UK.”

This is good news for the domestic supply chain which can look forward to a pipeline of new offshore wind projects RenewableUK welcomed the announcement by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy on new auctions that will secure renewable energy sources and see the UK’s offshore wind capacity nearly double over the next decade.

Responding to the announcement, RenewableUK’s chief executive Hugh McNeal said “This is a ringing endorsement by government of the UK’s world-leading offshore wind industry and its ability to deliver for consumers, businesses and British industry.

Our ambitions for offshore wind is a win-win for consumers, as the industry’s success at cutting costs mean that offshore wind is now one of the cheapest options for new power in the UK. “The announcement confirming the budget and timing of new auctions sets us on the

path to deliver the tens of billions of pounds of investment that will be needed to meet our ambition of at least 30 GW by 2030. This is good news for the domestic supply chain which can look forward to a pipeline of new offshore wind projects that will support tens of thousands of jobs across the UK." Scottish Renewables deputy chief executive Jenny Hogan said, “confirmation that next year’s auction will take place in May and the schedule laid out for future rounds provides much-needed clarity to Scotland’s renewables industry.

Developers and supply chain companies across Scotland can now plan for projects over the next decade with more certainty.

“The CfD framework has already helped cut the cost of offshore wind by 50% compared to the previous auction round, and these new auctions will be open to a wide variety of less-established technologies at different stages of maturity. To help UK businesses reach their full potential and realise government’s industrial and clean growth ambitions it’s vital that all innovative technologies are able to benefit from this cost reduction pathway and to compete meaningfully in auctions using the regulatory tools BEIS has at its disposal.” Ørsted UK managing director Matthew Wright said “We are really excited by this announcement. The UK has gained its status as the global leader in offshore wind by industry and government working together to give businesses the confidence to invest in projects, which have consistently been delivered on time and on budget. Through contracts for difference, the industry has slashed its costs, led by projects like Hornsea Project Two, which recently won an auction at the lowest ever price for offshore wind in the UK, halving the auction prices seen just two and a half years earlier."

Vattenfall UK country manager Danielle Lane said, “Providing visibility of future auctions will help support investment in clean growth and further drive down the cost of offshore wind.”

TOP: Hugh McNeal: “success at cutting costs mean that offshore wind is now one of the cheapest options for new power” BOTTOM: Kenneth Addly: “auction commitment gives industry just the right kind of signal”

Danish costs falling more quickly than previously anticipated New analysis suggests that Danish offshore windfarms entering production in 2020 will do so at a cost of just €46 (US$54) per megawatt-hour.

The Danish Energy Agency said an open source levelised cost of energy (LCoE) calculator it has developed indicated that offshore wind is gaining in competitiveness with conventional generation and that offshore wind’s LCoE has already fallen further than earlier estimates suggested. “The improved calculator shows that cost reduction in some core renewable energy options is greater than expected,” said the agency.

This is especially true of offshore wind energy, as a result of a

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

combination of lower capex and declining opex and technology improvements that allow new offshore wind projects to ‘harvest’ more energy at lower cost.

“This means that the LCoE for a Danish offshore wind project is expected to fall to €46/MWhr, excluding grid and system costs, for production starting in 2020,” the agency said.

Compared to previous assumptions capex has fallen by close to 40%.

Improvements in operations and maintenance have reduced opex by more than 20%. At the same time, said the agency, improvements in design have increased production from Danish offshore wind projects by 10%, giving a capacity factor of more than 50%. OWJ

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50 | VESSELS cable lay

Cable-layers respond to evolving offshore wind and interconnector markets

NKT Victoria is capable of carrying 9,000 tonnes of cable on two turntables

The offshore wind industry and interconnector markets are driving demand for new vessels and cable-lay equipment that can carry more cable, install it more quickly, in more challenging conditions and reduce the number of joints required

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

N

ew cable-lay vessels that entered service recently and those on order have a number of features in common that will make them more efficient installers of export cables for offshore windfarms and interconnector projects, of which there are a growing number.

Among the main features are significantly greater cable-carrying capacity – which means less time in transit to and from ports to load more cable and fewer potentially troublesome joints in cables – and higher transit speeds, for when it is required. Others include the ability to continue laying cable in adverse conditions and do so more accurately and quickly. In the longer term, experts suggest, new types of equipment will be required onboard to handle the challenge of cable installation for floating turbines and interconnectors in very deep water.

Speaking exclusively to OWJ in early August, NKT’s head of highvoltage solutions, Andreas Berthou, said additions to its fleet such as NKT Victoria, which recently completed 12 months in operation, were designed with offshore windfarms that are further from the shore and long, deepwater interconnector cables firmly in mind.

He explained that the diameter of high-voltage cables has also increased.

Together with longer cable routes, this has meant that the cable capacity of vessels such as NKT Victoria has needed to increase compared with earlier generation vessels. “Vessels have got larger as a result,” he explained, “which also addresses another important issue, the ability to keep working in adverse weather conditions.” Larger vessels make for more stable work platforms.

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cable lay VESSELS | 51

He explained that NKT Victoria could continue working in 3-4-m waves, conditions that would defeat older, less capable vessels that might only be able to continue laying cable in 2-m waves. Unless you have a very well-designed, stable vessel with integrated cable-lay gear, the accelerations induced by wave action on a vessel, and hence on a cable, can all too easily damage it. The stability of the vessel and its ability to continue to work in challenging conditions also enhances its ability to install cable on the seabed with a very high level of accuracy.

Combined with software programs on the vessel that monitor cable as it is laid and touches down on the seabed, NKT Victoria can lay cable on the seabed with a level of accuracy of +/- 25-30cm. Some earlier generation vessels – considered sophisticated in their time – are only capable of levels of accuracy of 2 m, Mr Berthou said.

He told OWJ that the cable installation equipment onboard a vessel is an integral part of the overall design, a sentiment MAATS Tech’s business development director Gavin Rippe agreed with.

MAATS Tech supplied the carousel and associated equipment for NKT Victoria and is contracted to do likewise for Nexans’ newbuild, Aurora, which is being built in Norway at Ulstein Verft based on a Skipsteknisk design. The company will also supply three deck tensioners and another in the gooseneck for the system.

NKT Victoria can carry 9,000 tonnes of cable on two turntables, a feature Mr Berthou said ensures that the vessel can complete even the largest work scope in a couple of campaigns, but the carousel that MAATS Tech is designing for Nexans’

new unit will be capable of carrying 10,000 tonnes of cable, in an innovative ‘carousel in a carousel’ arrangement.

Mr Rippe told OWJ that the concentric ‘carousel in a carousel’ concept would enable a ship such as Aurora to carry more cable without making the vessel excessively large and costly. “Were you to have to install two carousels on deck, a vessel would have to be much longer and larger”.

“The deck of a vessel needs a significant amount of space aft of the carousels, around 50 m, to accommodate tensioners and jointing equipment. Installing two turntables on the deck in order to give you the kind of capacity that Aurora will have wouldn’t be feasible. You can install one on deck and one below deck, but it’s not as operationally efficient a solution as the carousel in a carousel approach.”

The concentric carousel in a carousel concept on Aurora will be able to process two cables simultaneously, or alternatively it can store a single length weighing 10,000 tonnes. Other equipment that MAATS Tech will supply includes a capstan hold back, two deck tensioners, lay wheels and an integrated control system. The vessel will have two firing lines.

NKT Victoria is capable of simultaneous dual HVDC and fibre optic cable-laying and deepwater HVAC installation using a high capacity tensioner system. To enable complete cable-lay capabilities ranging from the deepwater to the shore NKT Victoria is designed to be beachable in fully laden condition. The vessel is also fitted with a six-point mooring system. For work in ultradeepwater, the deck has been prepared to accommodate a vertical lay tower to enable sufficient high tension hold-back capabilities.

The ship’s versatility is further

strengthened by a fully integrated navigation and survey system that will enable NKT Victoria to operate in high sea states and conditions that would prevent most cable-lay units from operating.

The offshore market’s stringent safety requirements are met throughout the installation process thanks to sophisticated roll reduction technology that mitigates the effects of challenging sea conditions. Fire and flooding containment systems protect essential systems, ensuring ongoing operations are not compromised.

NKT Victoria is an innovative vessel in a number of other respects, not least in its ability to use shore power when in port, thus reducing emissions from the vessel.

It also has ABB’s OnBoard DC Grid, which reduces fuel consumption and batteries that can store power. The Onboard DC Grid system will increase the efficiency of the vessel by allowing the ship’s engines to work at variable speed, in combination with energy storage for peak shaving and enhanced dynamic performance, optimising the energy consumption and reducing engine maintenance.

Energy storage is also used for backup for shore connection during cable loading, allowing the ship to be emission free during cable loading. This means that fuel consumption and emissions from the vessel are significantly lower than on other vessels, a feature that Mr Berthou believes is particularly important in the environmentally-conscious renewable energy industry. NKT Victoria’s overall fuel consumption is approximately half that of less sophisticated units, he said.

Like NKT Victoria, Aurora will be a dynamic positioning class 3 (DP3) cablelay vessel. The ST-297 design from Skipsteknisk will be outfitted for power

Aurora, Nexans’ new vessel, will have a ‘carousel in a carousel’ capable of holding 10,000 tonnes of cable

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Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

52 | VESSELS cable lay

cable-laying, including bundle laying, cable jointing and repair and for cable protection and trenching. The vessel is designed for installation of HVDC and HVAC cable systems, even in severe weather conditions, and for deepsea and nearshore cable-laying. As is also the case with NKT Victoria, the design has been developed for operation in rough weather and has high levels of manoeuvrability and stationkeeping.

The vessel will be 149.9 m long with a deadweight of 17,000 tonnes and will accommodate 90 people.

Aurora is due to be delivered in Q2 2021 and will have two firing lines.

In addition to power cables for export lines for offshore wind and deepwater interconnector projects it will be capable of carrying and deploying fibre optic cables, repair and joint cables will operate a seabed trenching machine.

Another of the ‘big beasts’ of the cable lay market, Prysmian, also has a sophisticated new vessel under construction. Having first announced plans to build a new vessel in March 2018, Prysmian awarded the contract to build the ship to another Norwegian yard, Vard.

The vessel will be capable of installing cables in water depths exceeding 2,000 m – a feature that will be important in the interconnector market – and will undertake a range of operations using a variety of burial systems, including heavy duty ploughs. The vessel, which will be designed to have a reduced environmental footprint, will have a length of 172 m and a beam of 34 m and accommodation for 120 people. Construction is expected to get under way by end 2018.

Prysmian has described the vessel as “a strategic asset” that will bolster the company’s ability to undertake turnkey projects and deliver end-to-end engineering, procurement, construction and installation projects. It will also strengthen the group’s interconnection and offshore wind project execution capabilities, replacing the now elderly cable-lay vessel Giulio Verne.

Like NKT Victoria and Aurora, it will have much larger cable loading capacity compared to earlier units and like its competitors, this will enable it to install cables with fewer joints. It will also be able to carry out cable laying and burial operations simultaneously, thus shortening the time required to undertake large-scale projects such as export cables and interconnectors. OWJ

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

Deeper water and floating offshore wind present new challenges Widely seen as the next generation of offshore wind projects, floating offshore windfarms will present cable lay vessels and equipment on them with some challenges to overcome, Mr Rippe believes, as will the installation of interconnectors in ever-deeper water.

In a presentation at Global Offshore Wind 2018, he explained that cables connected to floating turbines would probably need buoyancy modules attached to them. This will make installing such cables complex and increases the risk of kinking. Buoyancy modules will be required to maintain cables in position such that they are not subject to excessive fatigue loads.

Techniques exist that have been used in the offshore oil and gas industry to install cables in similar applications, but they require the use of a lay tower unlike those found on a conventional cable-lay vessel (although as highlighted elsewhere in this report, Victoria can be fitted with one if required).

In response to this challenge, MAATS Tech has developed a module launcher for conventional cable-lay vessels. It consists of a chute around a nominal 6 m minimum bend radius (MBR) and moving pads that transport the cable/module assembly from horizontal to vertical position. Where modules occur on the cable, a ‘pocket’ in the moving pad line will accommodate the profile. The pads are profiled in such a way that the MBR is not compromised. A further expansion of the launcher is a module management system just inboard of the equipment, which ensures safe and efficient handling of modules on deck.

Cable-lay operations usually take place with a top tension of up to 10 tonnes, for which a simple fixed chute is adequate. However, As Mr Rippe explained, in deeper water, such as are found in interconnector installation projects, dynamic top tension becomes significant and cable could be damaged if deployed over standard chutes.

In the oil and gas industry a vertical lay tower is used to overcome this challenge, a solution that would drive up the cost of an interconnector project. MAATS Tech’s solution is a variation of the active chute for module launching described above. It has a series of PU lined pads which do not present point loads to the cable and form a continuous moving belt which the cable rests in. The pads are U-shaped around the cable, which further helps to maintain cable shape during deployment. The chute is motorised to neutralise cable friction and can accommodate top tensions of up to 150 tonnes and an 8 m radius. The chute works with a MAATS Tech horizontal four-track tensioner on the deck.

Compared to earlier vessels, the capacity of cable-lay vessels has grown significantly

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CONTRACTOR PROFILE | 55

Joint venture brings together offshore marine and logistics expertise A

ugust 2018 saw the anchor handling tug/supply vessel POSH Pahlawan arrive at Taichung Port in Taiwan to commence the first charter that the operator of the vessel, newly-formed POSH Kerry Renewables, has secured in the offshore wind market in Taiwan.

The joint venture’s first contract in the country will see it provide anchor handling, supply and standby support to an international geotechnical services operator during site survey, installation and construction of an offshore windfarm off the coast of Guanyin. The deal potentially includes other sites in Yunlin and TaoyuanHsinChu. Work is scheduled to commence in Q3 2018.

As contracts go, it’s not a huge one, but as Kelvin Teo, director of offshore supply vessels at PACC Offshore Services (POSH) Holdings Ltd, one half of the joint venture, told OWJ, the potential requirement for offshore marine and logistics services supporting Taiwan’s offshore wind industry is considerable.

The joint venture between offshore marine services specialist POSH and Taiwan-based logistics firm Kerry TJ Logistics was formed earlier this year. In the short time since it was formed, it has also signed a memorandum of understanding with local marine and towage company Seagreen Enterprise. The aim of the agreement with Seagreen is to leverage POSH’s track record of executing offshore marine projects to enhance its operational know-how and embark on joint initiatives to recruit and train Taiwanese crew.

Leveraging the capabilities and assets of both companies, POSH Kerry Renewables aims to provide a comprehensive portfolio including end-to-end transportation of wind turbines and components and diversified marine solutions during installation, operations and maintenance of offshore windfarms in Taiwan. With

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Working in partnership with leading players in the country, a new company formed by businesses ultimately linked to Malaysian industrialist Robert Kuok aims to provide a wide range of services to Taiwan’s offshore wind industry

Kelvin Teo: “JV has the potential to play a role at every stage in the installation and maintenance of offshore windfarms in Taiwan”

an established track record for executing offshore energy projects, POSH brings specialised offshore marine expertise and a modern fleet of vessels. Listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, Kerry TJ is Taiwan’s largest logistics provider.

The companies unveiled their tie-up a matter of months after the authorities in Taiwan awarded rights to develop the first commercial-scale offshore wind projects in the country, projects that will see up to several GW of offshore wind capacity off the coast of the country.

As previously highlighted by OWJ, Taiwan’s government is making good on longstanding plans to close nuclear power plants and invest heavily in offshore wind energy. Late April 2018 saw the authorities there announce the results of its first large-scale auctions for offshore wind in the country.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has proposed to end the country’s dependence on nuclear power by 2025 while sourcing 20% of the country’s electricity from renewable sources – that is five times the level in 2015. That plan depends heavily on offshore wind, for which the Taiwan Strait is seen as particularly well-suited, and up to US$30Bn is expected to be invested in offshore wind through 2025.

In the long run, Mr Teo explained, the

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

56 | CONTRACTOR PROFILE

JV has the potential to play a role at every stage of the installation and maintenance of offshore windfarms in the country, and POSH Kerry will be joined by other strategic partners that are keen to customise solutions for Taiwan’s offshore renewables market. A memorandum of understanding (MOU) has already been signed with RollsRoyce Marine to explore suitable designs for walk-to-work and service operation vessels (SOVs) specific to offshore wind operations and another has been signed with Macquarie Capital and Swancor to jointly explore collaboration opportunities in the Taiwanese market.

POSH is best known as a leading player in the offshore support vessel market in the region but as Mr Teo explained, it has taken note of the fast-growth in the marine renewables sector, where it has assets that it believes can play a role, particularly in the offshore wind industry. It has 40-50 vessels of various types that could play a role in the offshore wind industry.

“Taiwan has already emerged as a key market for offshore wind,” said Mr Teo. “We could see that there was huge potential in it for the services we can provide.

What we needed to do was find the right partner in Taiwan, which we did in Kerry TJ Logistics.” Both companies are part of entities ultimately linked to Robert Kuok in Malaysia. Mr Kuok holds interests in POSH and Kerry TJ Logistics via Kuok (Singapore) Limited and Hong Kong-listed Kerry Logistics Network respectively.

Mr Teo highlighted the importance in the Taiwanese offshore wind industry of local content, so the tie-up with Kerry TJ Logistics makes sense in a number of respects. Another reason the JV makes sense is the way POSH’s expertise in offshore marine complements the Taiwanese firm’s logistics expertise. Both are important in offshore wind. The joint venture is also supported by Enterprise Singapore, which has been working closely with POSH on its entry into Taiwan, sharing insight into the market there and facilitating connections with key business partners.

Mr Teo believes that, together, the companies’ offshore offering will be more than the sum of its parts, and that the relationship with Seagreen further broadens its skillset. POSH brings barges, platform supply vessels, anchor handlers and, potentially, accommodation units to the party. Seagreen complements this with a local fleet of smaller vessels.

Mr Teo told OWJ that in due course, the newly-formed JV has the potential to

Offshore Wind Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018

The first vessel assigned by the JV to the offshore wind market in Taiwan, POSH Pahlawan

broaden the scope of its activity in Taiwan quite significantly. In the long run, he does not rule out investing in installation assets, and the JV and related companies could even play a role fabricating monopile and jacket-type foundations, he said.

In the European offshore wind market, modified offshore support vessels were initially used as SOVs, but it quickly became clear that purpose-designed and built units were clients’ preferred solution, hence the JV’s relationship with vessel designer Rolls-Royce Marine.

“Conditions offshore Taiwan are different from those in Europe,” said Mr Teo, “so we wanted to get involved with a leading designer that could produce SOV designs tailored to the region and to the individual requirements of potential clients.”

The location of initial offshore wind projects offshore Taiwan could mean that specialised SOVs aren’t required in the short-term, he said, but in the longer term, for projects further from the shore, purpose-built SOVs well could be required.

Should the JV need to acquire specialised vessels such as SOVs to meet the requirements of a charter in the country, building those vessels in Taiwan would be a significant potential advantage given the

Mr Teo told OWJ that in due course, the newly-formed JV has the potential to broaden the scope of its activity in Taiwan

Taiwanese government’s hopes for local content. That’s something Mr Teo and his colleagues are looking at, but a lot depends on finding a yard that could handle this kind of project and do so in the required time frame. “We would like to be able to build in Taiwan, but at the moment we are keeping our options open,” Mr Teo said.

Going forward, said Mr Teo, the JV aims to continue with the strategy that led to its creation, combining Singaporean assets with those in Taiwan. The way that the JV was initiated and the MOU with Seagreen will form the template for future collaboration with Taiwanese players as the offshore wind industry in the country takes off. OWJ

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