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UK Offshore Wind Accelerator - Access Competition
07.10.10Last week, the UK Carbon Trust launched a competition to find world-leading solutions to the problem of transferring engineers and equipment safely from boats to wind turbines as far as 300km offshore in up to 3 metre wave heights. The project aims to improve the economics of offshore wind by boosting revenues by as much as £3bn at a crucial time for the next generation of Round 3 offshore wind farms.
This competition forms part of the Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA), a collaborative R&D project between the Carbon Trust and eight of the leading international offshore wind farm developers. The open competition will identify and develop new access systems to dramatically improve the availability of turbines and the safety of people during the transfer to turbines.
Competition entries can address one or more of the access challenges identified, i.e.
- Transfer systems – to safely transfer personnel and equipment from vessels to turbines
- Vessels – to carry personnel and equipment to the turbines
- Launch and recovery systems – to allow permanent platforms and motherships housing maintenance crews to launch and recover the vessels to carry personnel to turbines
See link for further information.
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