offshore wind operational report - the crown · pdf fileseabed had 1,309 operational offshore...

Operational report 2015Offshore wind

Contents

1 Preface 3

2 Introduction 5

3 Offshore wind farm status 6

4 Assets 8

5 Investment 14

6 Ownership 15

7 Knowledge 16

8 Sustainability 19

www.thecrownestate.co.uk/energy-and-infrastructure 3

Preface1

The UK has more offshore wind turbines than the whole of the rest of Europe (Figure1). Confidence in the future remains strong and, with more than 1.5GW under construction and almost 5GW in the pipeline with confirmed government support, offshore wind power remains on course to meet around 10% of the UK’s electricity demand by 2020. Last year the UK installed 813MW of new offshore wind farm capacity, accounting for more than half of all new installations across Europe, European Wind Energy Association figures show.

Also, activity during 2014 has confirmed there is a growing appetite

for mergers and acquisitions among both generation and offshore transmission assets, with investment in the sector now coming in from around the world including the Middle East, Japan and Canada. Continuing investor interest is underpinned by Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysis showing the UK provides the most stable regulatory regime in the North Sea countries investing in offshore wind, ahead of Germany and Denmark.

The offshore wind sector and its’ suppliers is determined to drive down costs and greater industry collaboration, like the SPARTA system (p.16), will be essential to this. The Cost Reduction Monitoring Framework

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Figure 1: Growth in offshore wind turbine numbers in UK waters

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report published by ORE Catapult in February 2015 has already confirmed that the UK offshore wind industry is on a path to reduce the levelised cost of offshore wind energy to below £100 per MWh for projects reaching final investment decision (FID) by 2020. By then we estimate over 10GW of capacity will be installed, continuing to create high value jobs and support the UK’s transition to a secure and low carbon energy mix.

Huub den Rooijen Head of Offshore Wind, The Crown Estate

https://twitter.com/search?q=%40thecrownestate&src=typd

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47.8% of this output came from offshore wind projects

47.8%

All UK wind supplied 14% of UK power in December and 12% during quarter four of 2014

14%

This was enough to supply the electricity requirements of 6.7 million homes

The UK’s entire wind farm fleet, both onshore and offshore, achieved record generation output of 28.1TWh, 15% higher than the previous record set in 2013

+15%

Offshore Wind Operational Report 2015


Introduction2

The growing importance of offshore wind to the UK’s energy mix should not be underestimated. The 4GW milestone of installed capacity was passed last year and, at the end of 2014, there was 4,494MW either in construction or operational across 24 projects on Crown Estate managed seabed (Figure 2). This operational capacity resulted in 4% of the UK’s electricity requirements being met by offshore wind over the course of the year.

Britain’s offshore wind fleet performed better than ever before, generating a record 13.4 terawatt hours (TWh), sufficient to meet the needs of almost 3.2 million homes. This was an 18% increase over 2013.

These successes came despite wind speeds proving highly variable during the course of the year with some months well above, and others

well below, the long term average. December 2014 broke the record for the most electricity generated by offshore wind in one month which, at 1.89TWh, was 25 % higher than the previous record set just one year earlier in December 2013.

Whilst the pipeline for new projects remains strong, there will be a dip in new operational capacity completions through to 2017. Nevertheless, overall output will continue to grow steadily as sites in construction complete and move to stable operation. With a fair wind, 2015 generation growth may well eclipse 2014’s 18% increase on the year before.

This report by The Crown Estate, provides a ready source of easily digested information about an industry which has fast become one of the UK’s industrial successes of the new millennium.

Figure 2: Total grid connected capacity installed – 31 December 2014

n UK 4,494.4 55.90%

n Belgium 712.0 8.80%

n Denmark 1,271.0 15.80%

n Finland 26.0 0.30%

n Germany 1,049.0 13.00%

n Ireland 25.0 0.30%

n Netherlands 247.0 3.10%

n Norway 2.0 0.02%

n Portugal 2.0 0.02%

n Spain 5.0 0.10%

n Sweden 212.0 2.60%

Cumulative share by country (MW)



Operational: Total capacity of wind farms that have been fully commissioned.

No. Project name Capacity MW

01 Barrow 90

02 Blyth 4

03 Burbo Bank 90

04 Greater Gabbard 504

05 Gunfleet Sands Demonstration 12

06 Gunfleet Sands I 108

07 Gunfleet Sands II 65

08 Inner Dowsing 97

09 Kentish Flats 90

10 Lincs 270

11 London Array 630

12 Lynn 97

13 Methil Demonstration – Samsung 7

14 North Hoyle 60

15 Ormonde 150

16 Rhyl Flats 90

17 Robin Rigg East 90

18 Robin Rigg West 90

19 Scroby Sands 60

20 Sheringham Shoal 317

21 Teesside 62

22 Thanet 300

23 Walney (Phase 1) 184

24 Walney (Phase 2) 184

25 West of Duddon Sands 389

Total 4,039

Under construction: Total capacity of wind farms that are under construction or where the developer has confirmed a final investment decision, but are not yet fully operational.

No. Project name Capacity MW

26 Burbo Bank Extension 258

27 Dudgeon 402

28 Gwynt y Môr 576

29 Humber Gateway 219

30 Kentish Flats Extension 50

31 Westermost Rough 210

Total 1,715

Government support on offer: Total capacity of wind farms that have secured a Contract for Difference or whose publicly stated timescales are consistent with accessing the Renewables Obligation (RO).

No. Project name Up to capacity MW

32 Beatrice 664

33 Blyth Demonstration 99

34 East Anglia ONE 714

35 Galloper1 340

36 Heron Wind (Hornsea) 600

37 Neart na Gaoithe (NNG) 448

38 Njord (Hornsea) 600

39 Race Bank1 580

40 Rampion1 (Southern Array) 400

41 Walney Extension 660

Total 5,105

1 RO feasible based on published grid connection dates as per TEC register – Mar 2015

NOTE: Quoted capacity refers to the property rights held with The Crown Estate and does not necessarily reflect the build out capacity permissible under current or future statutory planning permissions.

Growth in project pipeline

There are now 25 fully operational offshore wind projects in the UK (Figures 3 and 4) with another 6 ‘under construction’; 3 of these are almost complete. In addition, another 10 projects with an aggregate capacity of more than 5GW have either a stated delivery timescale which is consistent with Renewable Obligation eligibility or a Contract for Difference (CfD) has been secured. At an average of over 500MW, these projects are generally larger and further from shore than previously with an expected resultant increase in turbine size and load factor.

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Figure 5: Percent of UK electricity from offshore wind

Offshore wind farm status 3

Figure 3: UK operational and near term projects – April 2015

Offshore wind accounted for 4.0% of UK electricity generated in 2014 (Figure 5). All wind reached 9% of UK electricity generation in 2014, a year when the total of all forms of renewable energy generation (22%) exceeded nuclear output (19%) for the first time (Figure 6).


Territorial Waters Limit UK Continental Shelf United Kingdom

Rest of Europe

Figure 6: UK electricity generation mix – 2014

TWh %

n Gas 101.1 30%

n Coal 97.4 29%

n Nuclear 63.8 19%

n Bioenergy 22.9 7%

n Onshore wind 18.3 5%

n Offshore wind 13.4 4%

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SOURCE:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/415997/electricity.pdf

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/415998/renewables.pdf

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Figure 4: UK offshore wind project locations – April 2015



Assets4

UK offshore wind asset summary

At the end of December 2014, the UK seabed had 1,309 operational offshore wind turbines, 21 offshore substations and 47 export cables transmitting power back to shore (Figure 7).

At the beginning of this year there were another 223 turbines under construction, accounting for a further 960MW of capacity, and another 5GW with government support in place.

DONG Energy currently has the largest share of operational project capacity, followed by Vattenfall and E.ON.

The growth in installed capacity over the past 10 years has resulted in an average increase in annual production of over 50% per annum between 2005 and 2014 (Figure 8). The industry is expected to continue to grow strongly, with a 20% increase expected in 2015.

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Figure 8: UK offshore wind generation growth, 2004 – 2014

Figure 7: UK offshore wind assets

Offshore turbines Operating: 1,333

Under construction: 199

Total: 1,532

Offshore substations Operating: 16


Total: 21

Onshore substations Operating: 21


Total: 25

Export cables Operating: 47


Total: 58

Offshore masts Operating: 26


Total: 27

31 March 2015


to balance supply and demand. National Grid asks generators of all kinds – not just wind farms – to come on or off the grid to avoid bottlenecks in the network and smooth out the supply.

It can include buying generation onto or off the network one or two days ahead of real time, and bids on the balancing mechanism within one or two hours of when the energy is needed.

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Figure 9: Energy deviation due to wind speeds – 2014

SOURCE: http://www2.nationalgrid.com/UK/Our-company/Electricity/Balancing-the-network/

Wind profile

Across the UK, wind speeds varied significantly from the norm with February 2014 recording windiness 50% above the long term average and September 49% below the average (Figure 9). Over the year as a whole, however, windiness was in line with the long term average.

Despite the high degree of variability in windiness, National Grid was able

This is something that National Grid has done for years, many times each day; this practice is becoming more important as more renewable energy plants come online.

National Grid’s demand forecasting team also plans ahead to ensure there is enough back-up power available to cover any potential shortfall in supply.

Reliability and availability

For generators, asset reliability involves maximising the energy yield of projects whilst optimising energy generation costs. For transmission owners, asset reliability is pre-requisite to maintaining a licence to operate. Availability of a system is typically measured as a factor of its reliability – as reliability increases, so does availability. As reliability and availability increases, so too does performance (see next section).

Successful high reliability and availability asset operation requires a full range of technical, environmental, project and financial management skills and knowledge to be integrated within a safe and healthy operational environment.



Offshore transmission availability

The offshore regulatory regime, developed by DECC and Ofgem, was launched in 2009 and uses competitive tendering for licensing offshore electricity transmission. Offshore transmission owners (OFTO) are awarded a licence to operate and maintain the transmission assets in return for a regulated revenue stream. The licence includes a requirement to maintain annual system availability at 98% or above.1

Failure to operate at the required availability level will result in loss of revenue to the OFTO. This report provides an overview of offshore transmission system availability performance for Robin Rigg, Gunfleet Sands, Barrow, Ormonde, Walney I, Walney II, Sheringham Shoal, London Array and Greater Gabbard from 01 January 2014 to 31 December

availability as reported for the availability incentive (red column, accounting for outages excluded from the availability incentive and those deemed as exceptional events).

Performance

Business performance involves the management of resources and operations in order to generate a return on investment. An improvement in asset performance (e.g. production = wind speed x capacity x availability) in an offshore wind context will be strongly influenced by increased asset availability during high wind periods and improved reliability.

Health and safety is an integral and fundamental part of business performance, particularly when much of the day-to-day activity is conducted year round in the offshore environment.

Generation

In 2014, the UK fully connected four new wind farms to the grid, consisting of 219 turbines and delivering a generation capacity of 813.4MW.

This means that the UK now hosts 55.9 % of all installed offshore wind capacity in Europe.

Walney 2 once again broke the record for offshore wind farm performance last year, beating its 2013 record of 47% to give a load factor of 48.7%.

2014 (Lincs & Thanet have not been included in this report as their licences were not granted until the end of 2014).

Although OFTOs have to report all outages, only certain outages impact on an OFTO’s availability. In general these fall into two groups: “exclusions”, which are automatically exempt from the availability incentive, and “exceptional events” which are allowed at Ofgem’s discretion.

After accounting for exceptional events and exclusions, all reported annual system availability was above 98%, and 2014 performance bonuses have therefore been earned (Figure 10).

The graph above presents availability for each project from 01 January 2014 to 31 December 2014. It includes OFTOs actual availability (blue column, accounting for all outages) and

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Figure 10: 2014 transmission system availability levels

n Total availabilityn Included in availability incentive when exceptional events granted

1 OFTO availability is measured over a calendar year (an ‘incentive period’). The availability over this period is applied to the revenue in the following financial year (a ‘relevant year’). SOURCE: NG NETS Performance Report 2014

The 3 OFTO tender rounds conducted by Ofgem have resulted in an overall sale value of £1.85bn for the 11 transactions completed to 31 December 2014; the 4 projects still to be completed have an estimated value of around £1.05bn.

£1.85bn


Health and safety

The health and safety of all employees is top priority throughout the offshore wind farm lifecycle, most particularly during the construction and operation and maintenance phases.

Nine of the world’s largest renewable energy developers – RWE Innogy, DONG Energy, Statkraft, E.ON Renewables, Centrica Renewable Energy, ScottishPower Renewables, SSE Renewables, Vattenfall and Statoil – were founder members of the G9 Offshore Wind Health and Safety Association in 2010. G9 aims to deliver world-class safety performance across the industry.

The group’s second annual report, published in April 2015, showed the sectors overall Lost Time Injury Frequency rate fell by 34% in 2014 compared to the previous year although during the same period

Figure 11: Key health and safety performance facts and figures 2014

n Hazards 97n Near hits 655n First aid 95n Medical treatment injuries 54n Restricted work days 14n Lost work days 44

Key facts

959 reported incidents

0 fatalities

44 total lost work days

6 injuries to employees and contractors reported under RIDDOR

651 incidents occurred on operational sites

289 incidents occurred on project sites

15 incidents occurred on survey sites

Work process

228 incidents during marine operations*

140 lifting operations incidents

134 incidents occurred when operating plant and machinery

Incident area

369 incidents occurred in the turbine region

315 incidents occurred onshore

243 incidents occurred on vessels

* Marine operations comprise the following work processes: maritime operations, transfer by vessel, vessel operations, vessel mobilisation. Source: http://www.actu-environnement.com/media/pdf/news-24426-rapport-risques-eolien-offshore.pdf

2014 incident severity summary

Taking into account only those sites fully operational for the whole of 2014, five of the more recently completed sites exceeded the 40% load factor threshold, collectively generating over 6TWh of electricity. Whilst the sites’ accounted for just 45% of the year’s fully operational capacity, their output amounted to over 50% of the year’s output from all sites, a clear indication that technological improvements across the industry are boosting performance.

The average load factor – % output delivered vs theoretical maximum – in the UK’s offshore wind portfolio in 2014 was 38%, narrowly beating the previous 37.7% record set in 2013.

In February 2014 an average load factor of 66% was recorded for the sector, some 20% higher than the previous high of 55% set just two months earlier in December 2013.

the actual number of reported injuries increased by 3%.

This data is being used as a benchmark for the industry to improve upon in order to make offshore wind farms a safer place to operate.

In 2014, there were a total of 959 reported incidents, of which 655 were near hits and 97 reported hazards. The balance was made up of 44 lost work days, 14 restricted work days, 54 injuries requiring medical treatment and 95 receiving first aid (Figure 11).

“Within the G9 there is a commitment to be open, honest and transparent concerning our HSE performance and this report is a valuable resource which helps us identify and respond to emerging HSE risks, and continuously improve the safety performance of our industry,” said Benj Sykes, chairman of the G9 board of directors, and head of asset management at DONG Energy Wind Power.



Cable repair times to be reduced

Undersea cable repairs are often subjected to delay due to a number of factors, including vessel mobilisation, availability of suitably trained personnel and availability of spare parts. Cable outages result in lost revenue to the associated offshore generator, and repair costs for the offshore transmission owner (OFTO).

TC Ormonde OFTO Ltd has been awarded project funding following application to Ofgem’s Electricity Network Innovation Competition (NIC). If successful, the project will result in improved availability of connections between offshore wind farms and their onshore connection point by reducing cable repair times and associated costs.

The project involves:1 Conversion of an existing telecoms

vessel to provide power cable repair capability;

2 The vessel being available to all OFTOs (and other parties) through the Atlantic Cable Maintenance & Repair Agreement (ACMA) on standard terms;

3 Developing, manufacturing and testing a universal cable joint; and

4 Training staff in cable repair and jointing best practice.

The project is estimated to deliver significant annual cost savings from 2018 (when the converted vessel will be ready for service) as a result of increased output and reduced repair costs.

Global Marine Systems Ltd (GMSL), the owner of a fleet of cable ships

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Figure 13: Trend in rotor area per MW for UK offshore wind farms

including the vessel proposed for modification, has been selected as the prime subcontractor for this work. Other subcontractors, including the jointing subcontractor, will be selected through a tendering process.

The total project cost is forecast to be £10.3m with NIC funding accounting for £9m of this, and is programmed to run from January 2015 to July 2018.

Generation

Ten UK offshore wind farms accounted for approximately three quarters of all offshore generation in 2014. Of these, eight were completed during the last five years and two were not fully complete at year end. These ten wind farms will therefore account for an even higher proportion of overall generation in 2015. The remaining seventeen wind farms, accounting for 25% of operating capacity, generated the balance of 25%.

Figure 12: Offshore wind generation by wind farm (TWh)

n London Array 1 2.24

n Greater Gabbard 1.78

n Sheringham Shoal 1.09

n Lincs 0.90

n Thanet 0.86

n Walney 2 0.78

n West of Duddon 0.77

n Walney 1 0.68

n Gwynt y Môr 0.54

n Ormonde 0.53

n Other 3.251. Calendar year 2014 2. Not all projects fully operational during

calendar year


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Figure 15: Long term load factor vs wind farm first power date

Turbines

There has been an improvement in the design and productivity of offshore wind turbines over the last 10 years. One of the factors leading to these improvements has been an increase in rotor diameter, not just in absolute terms but also relative to the turbines’ rated capacity.

Figure 13 shows the increase in rotor area per MW for UK wind farms over time which is one of the reasons for the trend in improved load factors discussed in the next section.

Rising performance

The actual load factor figures for the whole UK fleet have been derived from monthly data. However, the annual load factors in Figure 14 have been derived using only whole calendar years of production data from fully commissioned wind farms. For example, if a wind farm was first operational in 2010 but not fully commissioned until 2011, the first calendar year of production data that has been used in this analysis would be that for 2012. This approach ensures that the load factor calculations

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Figure 14: Actual Annual Load Factor for fully commissioned wind farms compared to UK wind index

Load factor Linear (UK capacity factor) UK offshore wind index

of this trend are likely to be:1 More productive wind turbines.2 Wind farms being built at windier

sites.3 Improved wind farm availability.

Whilst Figure 14 indicates a trend of increasing load factors over time using actual production figures, a problem with this approach is that variation in annual mean wind speeds creates noise in the data. The result is that the trends are not as clear as when relative windiness has been removed from the data. So, a correlation analysis has been conducted between actual operational data and long-term wind speed data over the last 10 years.

These long-term load factors of individual sites have then been plotted against the first power date for each project to create the mean trend shown in Figure 15. Whilst individual project data points have been removed to respect commercial confidentiality, the trend is clearly one of performance improvement over time, particularly in the last 5 years. This rate of performance improvement is not expected to continue, although it is anticipated that some future UK projects adopting emerging technology may exceed a 50% load factor.

only use the true actual operational capacity on a year by year basis.

Overall, there has been a gradual increase in the total load factor for the whole UK fleet (dotted blue line, Figure 14). The UK wind index, shown by the red line, is varying about a mean of 100% but the actual annual load factor, shown by the blue line, is gradually increasing over time. This clear trend of increasing site load factors of the entire UK fleet is great news for the future of UK offshore wind portfolio. Three significant drivers



There is growing market evidence that debt finance is available for offshore wind projects with sufficient capacity in the debt markets to meet the anticipated demand over the next five years. This is supported by transaction activity – around £1.6bn of debt has been invested in five UK offshore wind farms in 2014, over one-and-a-half times the £1bn invested in 2013.

In 2014, UK Green Investment plc (GIB) launched the world’s first dedicated offshore wind fund in which it aims to raise £1bn to invest in operational offshore wind farms in the UK.

On 1 April 2015, UK Green Investment Bank Financial Services Limited (GIBFS) reached first close

on commitments of £463m from UK-based pension funds, a major sovereign wealth fund and UK Green Investment plc (GIB) itself.

GIB has now transferred its investments in two operating assets into the fund, which will produce an immediate cash yield for investors. They are:

• Rhyl Flats: a 90 MW, 25 turbine wind farm operated by RWE Innogy UK off the coast of North Wales. It has been operational since December 2009. GIB has sold its full 24.95% equity stake in the project to the Fund.

• Sheringham Shoal: a 317 MW, 88 turbine wind farm operated by Statkraft and located in the Greater

Investment 5

Figure 16: UK Offshore wind equity investment 2014

Site name Capacity Owner(s) New investor Stake Value

Generation assetsBarrow 90 DONG 50%; Centrica 50% Sale of Centrica share to DONG 50% £50mGwynt-y-Môr 576 RWE 60%; Siemens 10%;

Stadwerke Munchen 30%UK Green Investment plc (GIB) 10% £220m

London Array 630 50% DONG; 30% E.ON; 20% Masdar

Sale of 25% of DONG share to La Caisse

25% £644m

Sheringham Shoal 317 Statoil 50%; Statkraft 50% Sale of 20% share to GIB 20% £240mWestermost Rough 210 DONG 100% GIB; Marubeni Corp 50% c.£500m

Transmission assetsLincs 270 Centrica 50%; DONG 25%;

Siemens 25%TC Lincs OFTO Ltd – £307.7m

Thanet 300 Vattenfall 100% Thanet OFTO Ltd – £164m

Wash area off the coast of Norfolk. It has been operational since October 2012. GIB has sold its full 20% equity stake in the project to the fund.

Shaun Kingsbury, chief executive of UK Green Investment plc (GIB) announced: “Attracting additional capital and creating a liquid market for operating assets is an important step in reducing the cost of offshore wind and supporting the continued growth of the sector. New investors will allow the original developers to sell down their stakes and use the proceeds to finance new renewable energy projects.”

Wider equity investment activity in the UK sector during 2014 is summarised in Figure 16.


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Figure 18: UK offshore wind turbine market share

Figure 17: Owners of operating offshore wind farms in the UK

Project name Investor(s)

Demonstration sitesBlyth Demo 100% E.ONGunfleet Sands Demo 100% DONGMethil Demo 100% Samsung

Commercial sitesBarrow 100% DONGBurbo Bank 100% DONGGreater Gabbard 50% SSE; 50% RWEGunfleet Sands I 50.1% DONG; 24.95% Marubeni Corporation; 24.95%

Development Bank of JapanGunfleet Sands II 50.1% DONG; 24.95% Marubeni Corporation; 24.95%

Development Bank of JapanGwynt y Môr 60% RWE; 10% Siemens; 30% Stadwerke Munchen;Humber Gateway 100% E.ONInner Dowsing 50% Centrica; 50% EIG PartnersKentish Flats 1 100% VattenfallLincs 50% Centrica; 25% DONG; 25% SiemensLondon Array 1 30% E.ON; 25% DONG; 25% La Caisse; 20% MasdarLynn 50% Centrica; 50% EIG PartnersNorth Hoyle 33.3% RWE; 33.3% JP Morgan IIF; 33.3% Prudential M&GOrmonde 100% VattenfallRhyl Flats 50.1% RWE; 24.95% Greencoat; 24.95% Green Investment

BankRobin Rigg East 100% E.ONRobin Rigg West 100% E.ONScroby Sands 100% E.ONSheringham Shoal 40% Statkraft; 40% Statoil; 20% Green Investment BankTeesside 100% EDFThanet 100% VattenfallWalney 1 50.1% DONG; 25.1% SSE; 24.8% PGGM & Dutch Ampère

Equity FundWalney 2 50.1% DONG; 25.1% SSE; 24.8% PGGM & Dutch Ampère

Equity FundWest of Duddon Sands 50% DONG; 50% Scottish PowerWestermost Rough 50% DONG; 25% Marubeni Corporation; 25% Green

Investment Bank

Ownership6

Wind farms

The UK offshore wind sector offers favourable returns in a stable, regulated environment, presenting an attractive investment opportunity (Figure 17). Favourable conditions already attracting both UK and overseas investment include:

• Long-dated assets with 25 year asset lives and up to 20 years of contracted revenues

• Largely, inflation-linked revenue streams, backed by UK Government legislation

• Over a decade of commercial deployment and the largest installed capacity of offshore wind in the world.

n Vestasn Siemensn Senvion

Turbines

Until 2006, Vestas manufactured and supplied all of the offshore turbines installed in the UK. Since then Siemens Wind Power has entered the market and increased its share in the installed capacity offshore to the extent that it is now the largest supplier of offshore turbines (Figure 18). The only other current supplier of commercially operating offshore turbines in the UK is Senvion.



Knowledge7

SPARTA goes live

Equipment failures cost the UK offshore wind industry around £150m in 2012, so even a small decrease in the frequency of failure could generate massive savings, cutting the cost of power generation (Figure 16).

SPARTA (System Performance, Availability and Reliability Trend Analysis), allows offshore wind farm owner operators to anonymously share data on a wide range of operational issues, such as system downtime, repair interventions, crew transfers and weather conditions.

SPARTA produces monthly reports on this data so that over time it will reveal long term trends to help the industry identify measures to boost availability, reliability and performance. An example of the type of output generated for the participants is shown in the availability graph (Figure 17).

The Crown Estate has estimated that a 1% industry-wide improvement in availability arising as a consequence of

SPARTA against the 2014 offshore wind-generated volume of 13.4TWh, could meet the energy requirements of an additional 31,000 homes.

SPARTA, which began pilot operation in 2014, is now moving to long term operation. The participants are Centrica Renewable Energy, RWE Innogy, SSE, Statkraft, Statoil, ScottishPower Renewables, EDF Energy Renewables, Vattenfall, DONG Energy and E.ON

Figure 16: SPARTA seeks to deliver performance improvement

Renewables, representing the whole of the UK’s installed capacity.

The project’s development cost has been met by ORE Catapult and The Crown Estate with in-kind support from DNV-GL.

The project is open to eligible projects from outside the UK provided anonymous reporting can be maintained.

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Mean wind farm availability (%)*

Figure 17: Sample SPARTA output using pilot data

Aggregated data is shown from the pilot year with not all UK offshore wind farms yet represented.

With SPARTA now entering full operation, more capacity will be added with the goal being to include all UK offshore capacity.

During the SPARTA pilot year a significant reduction in the variation in availability has been observed across the sector. This is likely to be due to a number of wind farms experiencing higher than average outages earlier in the year.

Early indications suggest that there is room for improvement in mean wind farm availability.

* The wind farm availability calculation includes Generating (IAOG) and Out of Environmental Specification (IAONGEN) according to IEC 614-26-1 standard information model. All other states are not included in this availability figure.

Data includes 11 wind farms representing over 50% of installed capacity of UK offshore wind farms.


anomalies and makes it more readily usable to those interested in using it for analysis and other purposes.

The Marine Data Exchange website currently holds 1,864 series of data which, it is estimated, will have cost the industry more than £500m to collect during the development, construction and operational phases.

More than half of those series are freely available; those remaining will be published over the coming years as confidentiality agreements come to an end. On average, 188 datasets or reports are downloaded from the MDE each month to 257 unique domains such as universities, public bodies, NGOs, offshore project developers and other commercial organisations.

Evidence that the offshore wind operations and maintenance sector is maturing is being actively demonstrated through the clear commitment to joint industry projects (JIP) and other initiatives such as SLIC (structural lifecycle industry collaboration) and SPARTA (system performance availability, reliability and performance trend analysis). Examples of other, less well known, collaboration opportunity or practice are referenced below.

http://www.marinedataexchange.co.uk

Jack-up optimisation

Jack-up vessel optimisation

Improving offshore wind performance through better use of jack-up vessels in the operations and maintenance phase

The Crown Estate published a report in 2014 showing how the UK offshore wind industry could save between £52m and £110m each year by collaborating on the deployment of jack up vessels for operations and maintenance.

Jack-up vessel deployment and mobilisation costs can form a substantial proportion of repair bills and can make fast repairs of single turbines challenging to justify in isolation.

The report showed how three site owners on the east coast saved an estimated £0.5m each by sharing a single self-propelled dynamically positioned jack-up vessel for component replacements on 10 Siemens 3.6MW turbines at three different wind farms.

The report makes a number of recommendations to facilitate increased efficiency and collaboration in the use of jack-up vessels, including to explore options for the establishment of a flexible vessel user group.

http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/media/451536/ei-km-in-om-construction-072014-jack-up- vessel-optimisation.pdf

The Marine Data Exchange

The Marine Data Exchange (MDE), developed and operated by The Crown Estate, provides free access to geotechnical, geophysical and environmental survey data gathered during the planning, building and operation of offshore renewable energy projects.

As lessor of seabed rights, The Crown Estate is de facto trustee for this data. Following review and cataloguing, non-confidential data is posted onto the MDE to help reduce future development costs and promote research and innovation within the offshore renewable energy and other sectors.

In the past year access has been provided to ‘cleaned’ wind data from various meteorological masts, LiDAR systems and buoys around the UK. Cleaning the data removes

The top 10 downloaded datasets are:

1 Thanet met mast data

2 Shell Flats met mast data

3 Gunfleet Sands II wind data

4 Greater Gabbard – Noordhoek wind and wave data

5 Greater Gabbard – Wave and wind correlation data

6 London Array met mast data

7 Gwynt Y Môr met mast data for 2005 to 2008, cleaned and validated

8 Shell Flats met mast data 2011 to 2012

9 Atlantic Array environmental statement

10 Gwynt y Môr met mast data 2005 to 2008


http://www.marinedataexchange.co.uk

http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/media/451536/ei-km-in-om-construction-072014-jack-up-vessel-optimisation.pdf





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Maintenance (Scottish Enterprise and The Crown Estate, 2013)”, flagged the need to plan and prepare for the use of both crew transfer vessels and helicopters for personnel transfers to and from site. It is important that this operational change, and barriers to implementation, be considered now in order to avoid delay and risk increased cost later.

The Crown Estate, in collaboration with Renewable UK, established The Offshore Aviation Operations Group (OAOG) in 2013, an industry forum focusing on operational aviation matters. The forum has brought together stakeholders, developers, helicopter operators and the oil and gas industry. Initial successes include bridging the gap between offshore renewables and the oil and gas industry with particular value derived from the sectors’ long established offshore helicopter operations and lessons learned.

The initial work of the OAOG has been promoted at a number of events to raise awareness and develop strategic thinking in relation to offshore operations. This will continue as new challenges arise, strategies evolve and issues are overcome.

Looking ahead, the planned development of a set of offshore aviation guidelines will provide reference material for offshore wind developers, stakeholders and helicopter operators to devise access strategies, assess training requirements and plan for emergency operations.

Fostering early and positive communications will help facilitate a collaborative approach to developing aviation related regulations, policies and guidance. And, through a greater awareness and understanding of the issues, potential direct benefits are expected to include enhanced operational efficiency, increased effectiveness and safety of services, and reduced risk and cost to industry.

to overcome. However, as deeper water wind farm projects move through consenting into construction and operation, more issues are beginning to emerge. These are typically related to regulation, policy, operating constraints, access and health and safety.

The publication “A Guide to UK Offshore Wind Operations and

Aviation

The offshore wind industry is being encouraged to proactively collaborate with aviation stakeholders to resolve aviation related issues.

So far, the key issue has been the unwanted detection of wind farms by radar, requiring innovative solutions


8 Sustainability Sustainability

Cambridge Econometrics estimate that in 2013 all wind generated electricity reduced Britain’s need to import coal by 4.9 million tonnes, or natural gas by 1.4 billion cubic meters, and concluded that UK fossil fuel imports in excess of £579m were avoided as a result.

4.9m

1MWh

0.86 tonnesof CO2

Every 1MWh of renewable electricity generated avoids 0.86 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.

A project would need to operate for less than 9.5 months to produce as much energy as it will consume over its lifetime (including manufacture and decommissioning).

9.5 months

energy as it will consume over its lifetime (including manufacture and decommissioning).

A report by Cambridge Econometrics for RenewableUK this year shows how much the UK relies on wind power to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel imports.

The report estimated that in 2013, all wind generated electricity reduced Britain’s need to import coal by 4.9 million tonnes, or natural gas by 1.4 billion cubic meters, and concluded that UK fossil fuel imports in excess of £579m were avoided as a result.

http://www.camecon.com/Libraries/Downloadable_Files/The_impact_ of_wind_energy_on_UK_energy_dependence_and_resilience.sflb.ashx

Green generation – sustainably

According to RenewableUK, every 1MWh of renewable electricity generated avoids 0.86 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. Using this figure, it is estimated that over 11.5 million tonnes of CO2 was avoided through the generation of low carbon energy from the UK offshore wind portfolio in 2014.

Research published by Siemens Wind Power in 2014, showed that an offshore wind farm has an energy payback time of less than a year.

Siemens carried out a lifecycle analysis of an offshore wind farm deploying its 6.0MW turbine and found that a project would need to operate for less than 9.5 months to produce as much


http://www.camecon.com/Libraries/Downloadable_Files/The_impact_of_wind_energy_on_UK_energy_dependence_and_resilience.sflb.ashx




LondonThe Crown Estate16 New Burlington PlaceLondonW1S 2HX

T 020 7851 5000

EdinburghThe Crown Estate6 Bell’s BraeEdinburghEH4 2BJ

T 0131 260 6070

www.thecrownestate.co.uk /energy-and-infrastructure

@TheCrownEstate

Correct as of April 2015.

www.thecrownestate.co.uk/energy-and-infrastructure

www.thecrownestate.co.uk/energy-and-infrastructure


offshore wind operational report - the crown · pdf fileseabed had 1,309 operational offshore...

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