Managing Weather Window During Turbine Installation

This autumn marked the start up of the three year project “Decision Support for Installation of Offshore Wind Turbines”, which was presented at the conference Offshore Wind Operations/Science Meets Industry in Bergen in September.

The project involves NORCOWE partners CMR, Uni Research, University of Bergen, University of Stavanger, University of Agder, Aalborg University and Statoil as well as Marintek and Met.no, with Reinertsen Engineering and Fred. Olsen Windcarrier as associated partners.

The aim of the project is to reduce the cost of installing offshore wind turbines, and here waiting for a weather window is a significant cost contributor. The current criteria to commence installation operations are related to simple parameters like significant wave height and average wind velocity at a reference height, and uncertainties are not properly taken into account. The Decision Support System will instead be based on response parameters (through weather forecast models and simulations) and use statistical models to capture uncertainties. This will give a clear and informed view of the risks and potential costs of carrying out an operation in a given timeframe.

The project is financed by the Research Council of Norway and Statoil, and managed by CMR – Christian Michelsen Research.

Press release, October 29, 2013; Image: norcowe