Offshore Wind Energy: “Safety at Sea Has the Highest Priority” (Germany)

The use of real offshore technology is indispensable for sound training of personnel for deployment in offshore wind farms, and for their safety on site.

“Preparedness for emergencies, concepts for the saving and recovery of employees in emergency situations, and the maintenance of industrial health and safety standards are prerequisite for the safe erection and operation of off-shore wind farms”, says Matthias Volmari, managing director of the OffTEC off-shore training and development cluster, in dialogue with politicians and representatives of wind industry enterprises at a gala weekend at the OffTEC site at Enge-Sande on the North Sea coast of Schleswig-Holstein.

The offshore training and development cluster provides such training opportunities at its nearby OffTEC Field, a wind farm equipped with typical offshore wind turbines. This includes such exercises as abseiling onto wind turbines from helicopters equipped with helihoist platforms. “We offer education and training under real-life conditions – all at one location”, explained Marten Jensen, initiator, managing partner and powerhouse behind OffTEC.

Safety at sea has the highest priority. This finding has evidently also been understood at political level. In answer to a question in the German Bundestag at the end of April, the government answered that “the working group on international rules and standardization at the Offshore Wind Energy Foundation has issued recommendations for ensuring safety through standardization”, and that the “Shipbuilding and Marine Technology Standards Committee (NSMT) of the DIN German Institute for Standardization has taken on the task their its implementation…”

A question in parliament in February had already stated that it is necessary “to ensure that in addition to the state services, the firms involved must develop and update sufficient protection and safety concepts and emergency plans”. A motion has been put before the Bundestag which, inter alia, demands that “a readjustment of the relationship of entrepreneurial responsibility and state services regarding rescue services for wind farms in the North and Baltic Seas be examined.”

The statement goes on to say that to date the responsibility for protection concepts lies solely with the operators of offshore wind turbines. It is imperative that recommendations for action are defined for these enterprises, “to guarantee uniform standards”. OffTEC is also working towards such standards, which should be internationally uniform and have internationally accepted certification, to ensure the quality of training and retraining of offshore personnel.

The government conceded that “offshore wind energy is a new area of technology for which there are no common specific training and retraining pro-grams”, in its answer to the parliamentary question in April. The working group responsible for this topic at the Offshore Wind Energy Foundation “has described the lack of well trained personnel as a key challenge”.

And this is precisely where OffTEC, the offshore training and development cluster, comes in: a modern marine safety center for sea survival, training centers for rescue by helicopter and at height, a fire protection and fire-fighting are currently being set up at the OffTEC Base, as are a technology training center that includes practical training components and a crane system for logistics training, laboratories and seminar rooms, and a helicopter pad. The nearby OffTEC Field is already in use, with wind turbines fully equipped for offshore operation and with the corresponding rescue systems. In addition to this unique training establishment, OffTEC Field also includes new and innovative wind energy technology such as a Siemens SWT 3.0-101 gearless wind turbine. OffTEC Field offers possibilities for research and development, and provides the first important operational experience with this new wind energy technology.

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Offshore WIND staff, August 22, 2012; Image: offtec