UK: Ormonde’s Large Project Award Proves Major Boost for ODE

ODE (Offshore Design Engineering) believes its role in helping Vattenfall’s Ormonde Offshore Wind Farm win a Large Project national award will prove a stepping stone to supporting developers tackling the country’s massive UK Round 3 wind farm projects.

The Ormonde triumph came in the inaugural Energy Awards of RenewableUK, the trade and professional body representing the wind, wave and tidal energy industries.

And it buoyed the ODE team who were the developer’s engineers and project managers throughout the consenting and implementation phases with responsibility for all design, procurement, construction, installation, commissioning and hand-over activities.

The award recognises exceptional achievement in a large-scale project during all the stages of project development. Built on schedule, Ormonde was the first large offshore wind farm in the UK to use jacket foundations and 5MW turbines.

ODE’s project manager Mike Hulton said: “It is fantastic that the success of the Ormonde project was recognised by industry experts. The award recognises the hard work and dedication of Vattenfall, ODE, RePower, FoundOcean and all other parties involved. This has shown that the UK is capable of designing and building lattice tower foundations in significant numbers and bringing on the largest commercially available wind turbine model. This is a great marker for successful future offshore large scale wind developments.”

Headquartered at Kingston-upon-Thames, with a marine base at Great Yarmouth, ODE was involved in the Ormonde project since inception by Eclipse Energy in 2002.

Following conceptual engineering and FEED and through the consent process, ODE arranged for the WTGs to be supplied from Germany, via the marshalling yard in Belfast, to installation off Cumbria, on time and on budget.

Chairman and managing director Peter Godfrey said: “ODE has shown the benefit of the long-term and consistent application of smart engineering and interface management in increasing certainty and delivering on time. We are a natural collaborator, which has enabled us to build trust with our partners, allowing us to share and work through challenges together.”

Ormonde had an extremely low accident frequency rate and an incident free environmental record. Only 2 minor H&S incidents were reported in 2million manhours. It was due to consistent ‘top down’ communication stressing that safe behaviour was as important as procedures and equipment.

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Offshore WIND staff, August 21, 2012; Image: Vattenfall