Thetis 2015

1. David WOTHERSPOON
Operations Director
SeaRoc

2. MAKING A
DIFFERENCE
OFFSHORE

3. O&M challenges
• Weather downtime / Accessibility
• Component reliability data sharing
• Predictive failure modelling
• Move to larger units further offshore – stresses, reliability,
access challenges, increased lost opportunity cost
• Supply chain constraints
• Vessel availability
• Obtaining scale efficiencies – planning across portfolios
• Different business models and planning approaches

4. • Whole Life Asset Management
– balancing Capex decisions with Opex decisions
• Accessibility
– Maximising Power Generation
• Innovation

5. Copyright: The Institute of Asset Management
Source: “Asset Management – an anatomy”
• O&M costs are some 25 - 30% of the
lifetime cost of energy in Offshore
Wind, but:
• Wind Energy Focus survey identified
that only 7% of companies saw O&M
as their biggest focus

6. Access / Marine Logistics
• Port Based Work Boats
• Work Boats with support
from helicopters
• Fixed or floating offshore
base (mothership)
• Access Systems
– maXcces
– motion compensated gangway
– V-Grip

7. • ~500 jack-up interventions around the UK
in O&M phases to date
• Production losses range from £100k’s to
£M’s per event
• Opportunity to increase revenues by £50-
£100M per annum across currently
operational UK windfarms.
• Proposes “charter club” for collaborative
use of vessels
• Uncertainty about long term failure rate
trends – difficult to commit to long term
charters. Need for improvement in
condition based monitoring and
predictive failure modelling
• Need for contracts to be in place to call
upon, improved communication between
windfarm owners, alignment of repair
practices and contracting approaches

8. Innovation
• Drone inspections
• High Wind “Boom Lock”
• Maximising ready access to construction data
spatially forplanning and coordination -
SeaPlanner

9. Summary
• No “One size fits all” solution – it depends on a range of factors but good asset
management procedures should be used.
• Ensure Opex is considered from the start and continues throughout, including
change management.
• Reliability – redundancy and back-up components.
• Monitoring – balance the cost of monitoring against the benefits of being able
to plan for potential problems.
• Don’t just look at “lowest cost” – consider the benefits of increased
maintenance time and accessibility for vessels
• Portfolio planning or clusters – economies of scale and cooperative planning
• Accessibility – get people and parts there safely and quickly to maximise
working time and therefore availability and production.
• Cooperate and Innovate