Aberdeen company W3GM says there will be a significant undersupply of assets . . . ships and crane barges . . . suitable for installing the huge number of offshore turbines scheduled for planting in UK waters under the Round Three programme.
The firm, which is developing a new class of construction vessel known as OWTIS in concert with Dutch shipbuilding and energy/maritime engineering group IHC Merwede, claims that there are no cost-effective alternatives available from the oil and gas market, and to compound the problem the trend has been for some of the new “windfarm” assets to drift to oil and gas construction.
This could be aggravated by slippage of Round Three projects by two and possibly more years from the original 2015-16 anticipated construction window, capital shortages and the fact that offshore oil and gas activity is hotting up globally.
W3G warns too that financial institutions still see turbine installation as the highest-risk area with regard to cost. However, with a shortage of installation assets it could also have an impact of the time to first electricity.
Paul Wilson, a director at the firms, says: “W3GM have carried out extensive operations analysis on the performance of current assets in comparison to their own design.
“The wind industry is unlike the oil and gas industry which is a product-based development and is much more of a batch or series process of installation, where the flow in the supply chain and logistics become dominant.
“The key parameter for the installation asset are the number of units that are installed per year, taking account of time per unit for weather, load-out, transit and offshore operations.”
W3GM estimates that competing assets are utilised for less than 60% of their time, carrying out offshore construction work. In contrast, it claims that OWTIS will have an on-site time capability of greater than 80%, in part because it is based on a hull design already well proven in the oil and gas theatre … construction and well intervention especially … and which has been evolved to suit the new purpose, including being capable of working in significant wave heights to 3.5m, more than some existing units.
The firm says it is now in discussion with a number of developers about a long-term charter for the vessel.
It expects the first build contract for OWTIS will start in Q3 this year and that the vessel will be ready during Q3 2015.
In parallel, W3G Marine is building a financial management, safety management, quality management and technical team that can support the implementation of projects. The company expects to have ISO 9001 certification within five months and ISO 14001 and 18001 within the coming 12 months.
W3G Marine was founded in 2010 by a team with extensive offshore experience. The company’s primary objective is to concentrate on developing safe and cost-effective solutions for the offshore wind turbine installation industry.
The company initially focused on understanding and developing solutions for the offshore installation of foundations and fully assembled turbines. The objective was to have a solution for the Round Three developments where the build phase is expected to start in 2015.
W3GM has worked closely with IHC Merwede to develop its concept to a basic design with sufficient information for ordering a vessel with crane and all major equipment included. IHC Merwede have developed the building specification and design to “proof of concept” level.
W3GM has been marketing its solution to various windfarm developers currently at the planning and consent stages of their R3 projects. Their financial resources are limited until they receive approval both from the authorities and their boards for the implementation of their plans. Developers have historically carried out this process sequentially. This is different to oil and gas where operators often carry out the statutory approvals in parallel with the project development.
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