News

Within the offshore wind industry, there has been a relentless and necessary drive towards cost reduction and commercialization of offshore wind. This cost reduction has been driven largely by the introduction of competition to the developers and operators of offshore wind farms through power purchase mechanisms such as CFD in the UK.

The Carbon Trust Cable Burial Risk Assessment (CBRA) Guidelines offer a standardized, repeatable and qualitative method to improve risk management of subsea cables, improve estimates of risk through reducing undue conservatism, and ultimately reduce the installation and insurance costs for subsea cables. Cathie were one of the lead authors of the Carbon Trust CBRA guidelines and were then retained by the Carbon Trust Offshore Wind Accelerator to act as technical advisers.

Offshore Wind has massive potential. Bloomberg New Energy Finance anticipates that the global offshore wind market will grow to 115GW by 2030 – a six-fold increase in 12 years! 2019 is expected to be a record year for offshore wind power in established markets with many emergent markets such as the US and Taiwan really ramping up. In addition, UK’s 30GW ambition will attract unrivaled opportunities for the supply chain, and £48 billion investment.

Infrastructure which interacts with the seabed, that is, foundations and subsea cables, accounts for a very significant portion of CAPEX spend, sometimes as much as 40 percent. This infrastructure depends on diligent design, robust ground model and seabed risk management to reduce CAPEX, ensuring constructability and to reduce long term OPEX spend. The quality, reliability and type of data characterising the seabed is critical to this process. Optimising something as simple as sample type and subsequent control on laboratory testing specifications can very positively impact CAPEX for foundations.

Pile Driving Monitoring (PDM) during driving and Pile Dynamic Testing (PDT) are widely used in onshore and offshore construction to ensure the structural integrity of the piles during driving and achieve a safe and economical pile installation. PDM helps to assess the pile behaviour during installation and thus to confirm the assumptions taken during pile design; as well, it allows to control the dynamic stresses in the pile and keep the hammer energy at max level compatible with pile integrity, thus allowing for an efficient management of the piling on field.

Since the 1850s, submarine cables have played an integral role in international data transmission and are now crucial to the growth of the offshore renewable sector. It is imperative to ensure the adequate protection of submarine cables so that they remain safe from threats such as fishing gear, shipping anchors, dredging and other dropped objects for the lifetime of the asset. 

Cathie will be presenting Cable Burial Risk Assessment methods and the current state of play at the International Offshore Partnering Forum (IPF) 2018 in Princeton, New Jersey.

Following the news of the completion of the installation of the 60 monopiles and transition pieces at E.ON’s Arkona Becken Südost windfarm project ahead of schedule, Cathie now inform that they have performed a study which enabled the reduction of noise in the water column created by monopile driving.

According to a recent report by Wind Europe, offshore wind in Europe doubled in capacity in 2017 to 3,148 MW raising Europe’s total installed offshore wind capacity to 15,780MW. There are now 92 offshore wind farms in 11 European countries, and once 11 offshore projects under construction are completed, the total installed grid connected capacity will increase to 18.7GW.

As the possibilities and uses of piled offshore foundations increase, so do the environmental, financial and technological challenges and demands. Leading providers of offshore geo-intelligence, foundation design and installation give us their take on the most cost- and time-efficient methods to overcome challenges