operations & maintenance ‘Charter clubs’ could drive down maintenance costs
In early September, The Crown Estate in the UK published a report aimed at improving the performance of the offshore wind sector, focusing on the more effective use of jack-up vessels to help bring down maintenance costs
THE Crown Estate has long played an important role in encouraging cost reduction in the offshore wind sector, and its latest report focuses on economies of scale that it believes can be found in more effective use of jack-ups.
By working with industry to identify common challenges and opportunities, the report draws a number of recommendations to improve repair times, reduce repair cost and address risk. In particular, the report highlights that increased collaboration between windfarm owners around chartering jack-up vessels could help reduce costs. The report goes on to suggest a flexible charter club, where owners pre-plan for vessel sharing without engaging a full-time shared vessel. Speaking at the time that the report was published, Huub den Rooijen, head of offshore wind at The Crown Estate said, “We have been a major player in the development of the offshore wind industry for over 10 years and seen significant growth in that time to the point where there are now economies of scale to be found in the effective use of jack-up vessels. This report is part of our strategy to encourage the industry to work together where appropriate to help bring down costs.” More than 500 jack-up vessel interventions at operational
offshore windfarms have taken place in the UK to date, and long periods of turbine downtime can occur while repair campaigns are planned and delivered. This downtime can result in millions of pounds of lost revenue. In addition, 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 finds that faster response times and more efficient
project planning can help lower the cost of energy. This is especially apparent with the increasing scale of deployment and geographic clustering of offshore windfarms in the UK and elsewhere. Greater collaboration could therefore minimise lost production revenue by £52–110 million per year across currently operational UK offshore windfarms. Operations and maintenance (O&M) costs are estimated to
make up at least a quarter of overall offshore windfarm lifetime costs, and O&M could become a £2 billion per year industry across the UK offshore wind sector by 2025. Efficiencies and cost savings in the O&M period represent a strong opportunity to make a material contribution towards industry targets to reduce costs. 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. In addition to supporting work on offshore wind turbines, jack-up vessels also have a role to play in the maintenance of offshore substations and associated transmission infrastructure. Experience gained so far in the use of jack-up vessels in the O&M phase highlights opportunities to contribute to reductions in the levelised cost of energy (LCOE) through: • faster response times to undertake repairs • more efficient project planning • reduced charter costs through a more structured, proactive approach in the O&M phase and greater optimisation of geographical campaigns. With the increasing scale of deployment and the geographic clustering of offshore windfarms in the UK and elsewhere, The Crown Estate believes that there are now greater opportunities for collaboration that can speed up repair times, reduce repair costs and minimise lost production revenue. Improved planning and collaborative approaches, aided by improvements in the use of condition-based information, could increase revenues significantly. “As larger turbine models are introduced and the size of the operational fleet grows, the benefit of better jack-up vessel use will make an even greater contribution to reducing LCOE,” said the report.
As it notes, uncertainty about long-term failure rate trends makes it challenging for owners to make commitments to long-term vessel charters. A collective full-time jack-up vessel charter may offer benefits if there is a large take-up of club membership and failure rates are relatively high but alternatives exist. A flexible ‘charter club’ offers an alternative
source of value improvements in planning of campaigns reduced mobilisation costs through collaborative campaigns
reduced production downtime through faster deployment of jack-up vessels from collaborative arrangements
40 I Offshore Wind Journal I 3rd Quarter 2014
BENEFITS FROM OPERATING A FLEXIBLE JACK-UP CHARTER CLUB existing operational sites £8m – £10m per year £13m – £17m per year £31m – £83m per year
future sites
£15m – £40m per year £15m – £67m per year estimated
£100m – £400m per year
www.owjonline.com
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