RWE is establishing a dedicated servicing team for offshore wind farms in the UK and Germany, where the company currently has five operational projects. For this purpose, the developer has signed a three-year agreement with Global Wind Services to provide a team of expert team leads and technicians, and an 18-month contract with Rem Offshore for a service operation vessel (SOV).
The team, which will initially have 30 people, will secure new, long-term jobs, and have the potential to grow further as RWE’s international offshore wind fleet grows. The Germany-based offshore wind developer aims to triple its global offshore wind capacity from 3.3 GW today to 10 GW by 2030.
It is expected that the newly created service model will create 70 new and highly skilled jobs over three years, including wind technician apprentices and graduate placements, according to RWE.
The new Fleet Services Team will work collaboratively with RWE’s existing operations and maintenance teams to ensure turbine services are carried out efficiently and to the highest standard, the company says.
Under the contract with Rem Offshore, RWE will charter the service operation vessel (SOV) Rem Wind to support the operations. The Rem Offshore’s SOV is the second new build designed by Vard and is the sister vessel of Rem Power that will be deployed on RWE’s Sofia offshore wind farm in the UK.
The Fleet Services Team will operate 24/7 and remain on board the SOV for 14 days at a time, enabling up to 500 services each year.
“These two new contracts with Global Wind Service to provide the technicians and Rem Offshore to provide the expertise and team of the Rem Wind vessel is essential to deliver our Fleet Servicing concept. It will create a step change in our RWE Offshore servicing strategy by moving from site scale planning and execution to a ‘Fleet Wide Servicing’ model,” said Thomas Michel , Chief Operating Officer RWE Offshore Wind.
“There are numerous additional benefits, including delivering improved Quality Health Safety Environment performance, commercial availability and wind farm integrity.”