EXCLUSIVE by Scottish Energy News
The Franco-Portuguese electricity generator which plans to build a 1.1-MW offshore wind farm in the Moray Firth is looking to design-out avoidable costs before committing to construction.
The Moray Offshore Renewables wind-turbine farm – which is a special purpose joint venture vehicle owned between EDPR (67%) and Repsol (33%) – will be capable to meeting the electricity needs of 700,000 households when built, some 15 miles offshore.
Such actions include: –
- Managing operations, repair and maintenance in-house after the turbine manufacturer’s warranty has expired and by encouraging greater competition between prospective contractors
- ‘Walk-to-work’ gangways to avoid personnel ‘ship to platform’ movements by boat
- Upgrading the National Grid transformer at New Deer, Aberdeenshire, to handle both 275kV and 400kV transmissions instead of using temporary – but more costly – transformers
- Using 66kV aluminium cables instead of more costly copper 33kV ones
- Removing the need for costly heavy-lift marine cranes for turbine platform installations by instead designing innovative GBS foundations; a self-installing hybrid floating structure with a steel shaft for the turbine tower could save up to 40% of installation costs
- Using a telescopic lattice mast to design-out the need for costly – and potentially hazardous – helicopters for installation work, and:
- Installing remote-controlled floating LiDAR data systems rather than costly, fixed, meteorological masts
Dan Finch, the Edinburgh-based chief executive of EDPR’s Moray Firth wind farm has vowed to share details of these cost-benefits with industry rivals through renewable industry trade bodies such as the Offshore Wind Industry Council.
17 Jan 2018
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