Fred Olsen Windcarrier News

Offshore wind turbine makers have been working to build increasingly bigger turbines, and the likes of GE, Siemens Gamesa, Vestas, and MingYang have in the past two years or so unveiled designs for giant 14-16MW rated units.It has been said that larger turbines, while more expensive per unit, reduce the overall cost of large-scale offshore wind farm development due to their being more modern and efficient, as well as leading to fewer units being required for offshore wind projects…

The global heavy lift vessel market is a difficult place to be. Utilization for the fleet has remained depressingly low since the first oil and gas downturn in 2014, currently hovering around 33% for the global fleet with a lift capacity of over 800 tonnes, according to IHS Markit’s ConstructionVesselBase. Fixed platform installation work, the traditional market driver for the heavy-lift fleet in oil and gas, has seen demand fall significantly. According to global figures from IHS Markit’s FieldsBase, 190 fixed platforms were installed in both 2013 and 2014, rising to 219 in 2015.

The offshore wind parks specialist Fred Olsen Windcarrier won its first major deal in the Asian market after being picked to install the 8MW Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) turbines at the Yunlin offshore wind farm off Taiwan.Fred. Olsen Windcarrier will mobilise one of its special purpose-built jack-up installation vessels in Europe during the spring of 2020 which will head to Asia to start working in this emerging market.“This is a very exciting project as it is the first large transport and installation project in Asia for us. We are glad to have been picked by SGRE as a reliable partner for this new market. The contract will continue to strengthen our relationship with SGRE.

As the domestic offshore wind industry comes to life, U.S. flag vessels will necessarily be part of that expanding equation.A potential sea change came with the recent announcement from Aeolus Energy Partners that the renewable installation and operation company was investing in a fleet of Jones Act-compliant vessels dedicated to the offshore wind industry. Long a barrier to entry for foreign and domestic prospectors alike, the Jones Act, a portion of the Merchant Marine Act of 1920…

Block Island — U.S.-based Deepwater Wind’s five-turbine, 30-megawatt wind park — was the first. It showed what was possible, what might not have been optimal and how long it all takes. Since then, incentives for onshore-wind have been curbed, while a tax credit for offshore wind has been extended. Wind parks are in the works. States have power companies buying offshore wind energy, and experienced offshore operators are hiring the new wind-service vessels from elements of their oil-and-gas supply chain. The Jones Act, too, is being overcome by fleet owners and designers joining the U.S.

Marine News contributor Robert Kunkel asks: Are we ready to support the farms? On August 19, 2016, we watched as the fifth tower and associated nacelle was raised on the Deepwater Offshore Wind Farm approximately 3 miles offshore of Block Island, Rhode Island. This is the first Offshore Wind farm erected in the United States and, without a doubt, a huge step forward for this controversial project and alternative energy supply. The Block Island Wind Farm has a total generating capacity of 30 megawatts and is projected to produce approximately 125,000 megawatt hours annually.

Scira Offshore Energy, operator of the Sheringham Shoal Offshore Wind Farm, will utilise a new UK-designed vessel transfer system to provide its wind farm technicians with safe and reliable access to wind turbines in a range of weather conditions. The safe transfer of wind farm technicians from vessels to the turbines is a key challenge for the industry. This new transfer system, known as MaXcess and produced by Northumberland-based OSBIT Power Limited, has been chosen for Sheringham Shoal following extensive trials, including at Statoil’s Hywind demonstration floating wind turbine in Norway.

OSBIT Power (OP), Siemens Wind Power and Statoil announced that they have successfully completed offshore trials of OP’s offshore wind turbine access system, MaXccess. The trials were conducted with the backing of Siemens Wind Power and Statoil, at the Hywind Demo floating offshore wind turbine off the coast of Norway. MaXccess was installed on the wind farm service vessel Bayard 3, operated by Fred Olsen Windcarrier, for the duration of the trials, conducted over the past month, from Statoil’s Hywind operations base at Skudeneshavn, Norway.

In 2010 Amarcon’s OCTOPUS-DP Capability forecast for efficient offshore DP operations was brought to the market. The OCTOPUS-DP functionality gives offshore vessels the possibility to make optimum use of a safe time window for their weather-sensitive operations. The first installation of the OCTOPUS-DP Capability forecast software was performed on the LNG Carriers Suez Neptune and Suez Cape Ann, in order to facilitate a safe time window so that the vessels LNG can safely be discharged. The OCTOPUS-DP functionality can not be compared with already existing Dynamic Positioning Systems.