Industry answers to energy blowing in the wind
An ambitious building programme will see Turbine Transfers Ltd with a fleet of 20 vessels by the end of 2011.
When The Crown Estate in the UK announced in January the successful bidders for nine Zone Development Agreements to develop offshore wind farms under the Round 3 licensing arrangements, it represented a major expansion of an already fast growing maritime industry.
Following the ‘demonstration’ Round 1 and an additional 7.2GW of capacity added with Round 2, Round 3 promises a potential 32GW of additional capacity to be installed both within and beyond British territorial waters. Another 6.4GW of capacity has been awarded for projects in Scottish waters and works are underway off various other European countries, including Belgium, Holland, Germany and Denmark.
As reported in last month’s MJ, the European Wind Energy Association and the Community of European Shipyards’ Association have urged the EU to identify offshore wind power as a key industry in its 2020 strategy for green growth and to support €2.4bn of funding for newbuild offshore wind farm workboats.
Meanwhile, there are some visionary operators who have been quick to see the potential for fleets dedicated to the offshore wind farm industry. One of them is Captain Mark Meade of Anglesey UK based Holyhead Towing, who established Turbine Transfers Ltd in 2008 as the marine renewable division of the Holyhead group.
Turbine Transfers has grown quickly to already employ 30 people and operate an expanding fleet of purpose built wind farm support catamarans built by Isle of Wight based South Boats Special Projects. Seven vessels ranging in size from 12m to 20m are already in operation and delivery of the eighth, the 18m Colwyn Bay, is imminent. Additional 15m and 20m craft are due in May, another 18m in July and two more in December, giving a total of 13 vessels by the end of this year. More boats under order will bring the total to 20 vessels by the end of 2011. In addition, Turbine Transfers are currently acquiring a used 30m crew transfer vessel.
In addition to having boats deployed at three different UK locations, Turbine Transfers also currently has boats off Belgium, Germany and Denmark. Colwyn Bay will go directly to work for Van Oord Offshore at Belgium’s largest offshore wind farm, Belwind, some 46km from the Belgian coast at Bligh Bank. The second 20m boat will join the first at a wind farm in the Baltic off Germany, hopefully appearing on the floating pontoon at Seawork between delivery and deployment.
With wind farms going ever further offshore, it makes commercial sense to Mark Meade to build the larger 18m and 20m boats, which have a larger operational window in difficult conditions and are more comfortable for both their crew and transiting technicians.
Mark Meade told MJ that while there are a number of very professional smaller operators in the field, many are unable to tender for larger contracts where the customer quite commonly requires four or five boats, such as the larger and further offshore sites. Gwynt y Mor, which will see up to 200 turbines placed off the north coast of Wales, is believed to need between 6 and 11 boats for quite a few years, for example. ‘And we’ve already had three jobs needing four or five boats, so we do think that there’s a future there for our size of company with a good fleet of boats and a proven track record’, said Mark Meade.
It is not only the initial installation phase that will keep wind farm support vessels occupied for the foreseeable future. It is estimated that one boat will be required for the ongoing maintenance of every 30 turbines, and thousands of offshore turbines are being installed across Europe. The industry supply chain needs to double every two years and Holyhead is putting up a new shed at its own shipyard just to maintain its fast growing fleet.
With South Boats at full capacity, Turbine Transfers’ last two 15m boats have been built under license by the Buckie Shipyard in Scotland, which has taken on extra staff specifically to build wind farm support vessels.
Recruitment of crew with relevant marine experience has not so far been a problem for Turbine Transfers. ‘Everybody likes coming into the industry, Mark Meade told MJ. ‘It’s well paid, there is steady work and good equipment. If you love working with boats it’s a great job. It’s an industry to be proud of, new, green and exciting. It ticks all the boxes.’
‘There were many false starts but about three years ago we saw it was finally taking off. Lots of people are building boats now. It is quite staggering what is going on, and what needs to be done.’
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