Sian Crampsie
Offshore wind farm operators in the UK have given their backing to a new benchmarking system that could help boost wind farm performance and reduce costs.
All ten of the offshore wind farm owner/operators in the UK have signed an agreement committing to the use of System Performance, Availability and Reliability Trend Analysis (SPARTA), a collaborative project that aims to reduce costs in the offshore sector and increase investor confidence.
Backed by the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult and the Crown Estate, SPARTA has completed a one-year pilot phase and has already helped wind farm operators to make improvements to the way they manage offshore installations.
Huub den Rooijen at The Crown Estate said: "Collaborative systems like SPARTA have been used for years in the offshore oil and gas industry to optimise asset performance, and SPARTA is a great example of how the offshore wind industry is maturing by learning from best practice elsewhere.
"The Crown Estate plays an active role in supporting the sector to lead the way in sharing data and knowledge to help bring down costs and underpin offshore wind's material contribution to a low carbon energy mix over the long term."
Adam Bruce, Chairman of the Offshore Wind Programme Board, said: "With the largest base of operating turbines in the world, the UK offshore wind sector has an unrivalled knowledge base to draw on. SPARTA demonstrates how the industry is leading the way in innovative solutions to cost reduction, and is committed to driving down costs further in the coming years, ensuring that offshore wind can play a central role in the UK's future energy mix."
SPARTA allows wind farm operators to input and share data anonymously on a wide range of operational metrics such as system downtime, repair interventions, weather conditions and crew transfers. The system allows them to benchmark their performance against other industry operators and identify measures to boost availability and reliability.
The Crown Estate believes that a one per cent industry-wide improvement in turbine availability arising as a consequence of SPARTA could meet the energy requirements of an additional 31 000 homes.
The pilot phase of the project has been extremely successful, and the feedback from owner/operators is that the platform is already helping them to make more informed decisions about the way they operate and manage their offshore installations," said ORE Catapult's Innovation Engineering and Programmes Director Chris Hill. "The fact that all of the owner/operators have recognised the benefits of participating in SPARTA, and have committed to its further development, is great news for the sector as it strives for further reductions in risk and cost.
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