The report, entitled ‘Jack-up vessel optimisation’, makes a number of recommendations to improve wind turbine repair times, reduce repair cost and addressing risk, by working with the industry to identify common challenges and opportunities. Increased collaboration between wind farm owners around chartering jack-up vessels could help reduce costs and the report suggests a flexible charter club where owners pre-plan for vessel sharing without engaging a full-time shared vessel.
“We have been a major player in the development of the offshore wind industry for over 10 years and seen significant growth in that time to the point where there are now economies of scale to be found in the effective use of jack-up vessels” said Huub den Rooijen, Head of Offshore Wind at The Crown Estate. “This report is part of our strategy to encourage the industry to work together where appropriate to help bring down costs.”
More than 500 jack-up vessel interventions at operational offshore wind farms have taken place in the UK to date, and long periods of turbine downtime can occur while repair campaigns are planned and delivered. This downtime can result in millions of pounds of lost revenue. In addition, jack-up vessel deployment and mobilisation costs can form a substantial proportion of repair bills and can make fast repairs of single turbines challenging to justify in isolation.
Faster response times and more efficient project planning could help lower the cost of energy, the report finds. This is especially apparent with the increasing scale of deployment and geographic clustering of offshore wind farms in the UK and elsewhere. Greater collaboration could minimise lost production revenue by £52 million to £110million per year across currently operational UK offshore wind farms.
For additional information:
