RISK MANAGEMENT
ASSESSING RISK IN THE MARINE ENVIRONMENT
The development of an offshore wind farm is inherently a high risk activity. There are numerous risks, a variety of stakeholders who have to take the risk and similarly a variety of stakeholders who have to manage the risk. These risks are ultimately reflected both in project costs and the cost of project finance. De-risking offshore wind is therefore a key element in offshore wind meeting its cost reduction targets. It is an axiom in Risk Managements that overall cost is minimised if those bearing the risk are those best able to manage the risk.
Marine risks in general and offshore in particular, are a challenge to meeting this axiom in that the weather dominates all risks and is by its nature uncontrollable, only its effects can be managed.
THE TABLE BELOW LISTS SOME OF THE MAIN RISKS…
Financial Risk: • wind resource estimation • Layout and wake effects • Turbine availability • Future electricity price volatility • Capital costs • Cost of finance
Construction Risk: • Metocean conditions • Seabed geophysics • Achieving high levels of safety • Availability of assets • Delays and downtimes • Installation activities • Cable installation
Technology Risk: • Marine Environment • new, larger turbines • Installation further offshore and in deeper seas
• higher voltage and new forms of power export
Operational Risk: • Metocean Conditions • Achieving high levels of safety • reliability of Turbines • Access to Turbines • Cable damage • Unrevealed design problems
MANAGING WEATHER RISK To manage weather risk you first have to understand the likely weather conditions at a site.
BMT have been involved in a major R&D project (Metocean Information “End to End” (MIPe2e)” sponsored by the UK Technology Strategy Board to develop innovative and robust protocols and algorithms to calibrate metocean models with real time data from multiple sources to improve metocean forecasts.
The project vision is to develop advanced data handling and easy to interpret visualisation methods that will benefit the offshore industry.
MANAGING SAFETY RISK The main players in the offshore wind industry have set themselves the target of zero harm in construction and operation. In support of this RenewableUK has produced Offshore Wind and Marine Energy Health and Safety Guidelines, including a requirement for risk assessment including:
risks need to be identified, assessed, controlled and mitigated within the structure of a robust and defensible Safety Management System (SMS).
One approach to investigate when considering Safety and Risk for the Offshore wind industry is the System of System (SoS) approach.
SYSTEM OF SYSTEMS APPROACH TO SAFETY AND RISK
The system of systems concept is an evolving systems engineering approach that manages the design, configuration and operation of a complex system. It is a concept that is often applied to complex engineering situations. An offshore wind farm, especially during construction phase, could be described as a SoS.
THERE ARE… • Physical systems – turbines, foundations, offshore transformer platforms and export cables
• Construction systems – foundation installation, turbine installation and cable laying
• Marine management systems – controlling what vessels are doing what and where
• People systems – hiring, training, deploying and monitoring staff;
• Information systems: weather forecasts
Each element of the construction phase is likely to be controlled by a separate organisation, with control of each operation sitting within individual organisations safety management systems. The system of systems approach allows for each of these elements to be managed effectively whilst taking into consideration the wider implications of the whole project. Risk management using this process can therefore be used to capture and analyse risks that fall beyond the boundaries of individual assessments/processes.
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