QED Naval have teamed up with Offler Marine Services Group (OMSG) to provide offshore expertise with the selection of installation and recovery methods, to help de-risk and reduce cost exposure of the Subhub project and its payload of tidal turbines.
QED Naval received a real boost to their plans to reduce the costs of deployment of the commercial scale (multi MW devices) from OMSG. They received a report this week from OSMG produced by the team who have significant experience within the tidal, wave and offshore wind power industry. Steve Offler lent his weight and credibility behind the Subhub project when it was recognised that the feasibility to install Subhub in 30-60 minute time scalesandat a fraction of the typical installation costs currently influencing the industry were achievable.
Recommendations from OMSG’s report are currently being implemented into the prototype structuredesign, based on a 4.0m diameter tidal turbine, tofurther fine tune the offshoreinstallation and recoveryprocess.
Jeremy Smith, Managing Director of QED Naval said: “This is a really exciting development for QED Subhub since the basis of our design is to remove the need for complex, large and hi tech installation vessels with equally high day rates and availability issues. This report along with what we have learned from our ballasting trials at Forth Estuary Engineering are the positive indicators that significant reductions in the costs of deployment of commercial scale devices are not too far away. We are steadily moving towards offering our customers and their investors a generic deployment solution no matter what the location, environment or turbine used“.
Steve Offler, MD at OMSG said “Marine Installation costs and risks are high, QED have identified this and sought to engage installation design expertise early to ensure costs and risks are mitigated, this is an extremely important part of the development process and one that will add significant value to Subhubs future success.”