“Winds of Change”: Delegates meet for offshore wind workshop

Last week we teamed up with the Carbon Trust to host a workshop aimed at disseminating the findings of an innovative new service to assess the impact of current and future metocean conditions on offshore wind operations. The service, which is funded by the EU as part of the Copernicus Climate Change C3S contract will produce new:

Datasets for current and future metocean conditions
Simulation technology to evaluate the impact of metocean conditions on offshore operations
Tools to explore strategies to increase efficiency and to mitigate metocean impacts now and in the future.

Taking place in central London, the event included presentations from ourselves, the Carbon Trust and the Waves Group. Delegates attended from across the offshore wind supply chain, and included financiers, metocean specialists, naval architects, installation and O&M contractors and project developers.

Simulation technology

During the workshop, a live demonstration of the simulation technology - ForeCoast® Marine - that is being used to assess the impact of metocean contributions of offshore wind operations was provided. Lively and wide-reaching discussions also took place on the potential impacts of metocean conditions on operations, now and in the future.

A central theme to the discussions was the value that the delegates saw in using the climate change data not just to explore future operational impacts, but also to assess the sensitivity of present day operations to changes in the weather- (i.e. asking the question “what if the changes come sooner than expected?”. While this is unlikely, the use of different climate dataset to evaluate the impact of weather was considered good practice by the delegates.

The workshop provided an opportunity for the delegates to help shape the development of the models and tools that are being developed under the C3S contract. This collaboration with the industry will continue to help maximise the benefit of the service of the offshore wind sector.