Energy giant ScottishPower Renewables is exploring deploying a 5G mobile network in the North Sea sea to aid the construction of an offshore wind farm.
Alongside Jet Engineering, the company is carrying out a feasibility study, a first step towards bringing reliable connectivity and real-time environmental data to wind farms.
Jet has been awarded a contract by ScottishPower to look at deploying a 5G mobile network for the construction of the East Anglia Three development.
Doing so would boost communications and allow environmental data, such as live sea state and weather information, to be fed ashore.
Behind every offshore wind farm there are hundreds of people working at sea over a number of years through development, construction and operations.
They all need to communicate with one another, as well as workers back onshore, and Jet’s systems could make that easier.
The feasibility study with ScottishPower Renewables will focus on the construction of East Anglia Three, with the findings also being considered for the operational phase.
Andrew Blair, lead telecoms engineer at ScottishPower Renewables, said: “We’re pleased to be working with JET on East Anglia THREE to explore what this new technology could do for our windfarms and how it could improve our communications and connectivity.
“Having quick and easy access to data and a reliable communications network will help ensure we can progress the construction of our biggest offshore windfarm at pace and get our turbines turning as quickly as possible to produce enough green electricity to power more than one million homes.”
Jet’s previous work has included deploying the world’s first floating 700MHz offshore standalone 5G connection in 2020.
That was followed by raw 4K subsurface video streaming over 5G and the launch of a floating 5G base station earlier this year.
It has also won the Defence Team Information Innovation Award 2022 and been awarded Offshore Wind Growth Partnership funding, as well as places on the Net Zero Technology Centre’s TechX Clean Energy Accelerator programme and ORE Catapult’s Launch Academy.
James Thomas, chief executive at JET, commented: “We are incredibly excited to be formally working with ScottishPower Renewables to bring our solution to the offshore wind market. We met the team in 2021 and they have been instrumental in our market research so far.
“This partnership is our next step towards our network deployment goals and we are looking forward to seeing our systems bring some real benefit to those working offshore. In addition, not only are we able to provide connectivity that is currently unobtainable, but by providing accurate wind and rain maps surrounding the wind farm we will be able to inform decisions on the best time to activate turbines to increase asset life and maximise utilisation.”
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