Transforming Geo-data flows from offshore acquisition to delivery

Governments around the world are relying on offshore wind to help them meet their future energy needs and strategic ambitions. For example, the UK government have an ambition of up to 50 GW by 2030 – more than enough to power every home in the UK – of which up to 5 GW will be from floating offshore wind in deeper seas.

Since we first got involved over 26 years ago, the sector has undergone significant change. This is due to a combination of factors including climate change, energy transition, energy diversification and energy security. Given the significant growth in wind farm footprints, turbine size and production capacity, the role played by Geo-data in accelerating and derisking more complex offshore wind projects has become increasingly important.

What data challenges do developers face?

Offshore wind developers work to very tight deadlines and the projects are complex to say the least. As the number and size of offshore wind farms increases and their distance from the shore grows, so do the challenges associated with connecting wind farms to the grid and requirement for more data. Their need for fast access to high-quality Geo-data means that providers are under pressure to speed up the acquisition, analysis and delivery of large datasets.

Back in the late 1990s, we would typically have deployed a single survey vessel for just a few days to acquire the necessary Geo-data. Today, because of the tighter timelines and larger developments, we often use five vessels that conduct the site investigation simultaneously over a period of months.

The more and larger datasets there are to keep track of, the more difficult the task of data management and sharing becomes, especially when you factor in poor offshore connectivity and bandwidth issues. For the sector to achieve its low carbon and net zero ambitions, it needs to become more efficient.

How can developers overcome these data challenges?

There is no single fix-all solution available. If you’re a developer who’s working with wafer-thin margins and to tighter deadlines, you should consider how best to achieve the following advantages:

Speedier access to data and analysis

Why process and analyse acquired data on the survey vessel, then return to port to post off a hard drive to the developer? when a specialist onshore team can access your digital datasets from the cloud and complete the task far more quickly.

This approach is ramping up efficiency for our teams. Thanks to improvements in satellite connectivity, we can rapidly transfer large volumes of data to our global network of remote operations centres (ROCs) for processing and analysis by our onshore expert teams. We are uniquely positioned to provide skilled staff, multiple vessels and a range of equipment, to help our clients deliver their offshore wind projects within an accelerated timeframe and reduction in carbon footprint.

Safe, sustainable and efficient operations

It makes no sense to rely solely on conventional large and fuel-heavy survey vessels along with an extensive crew when you can also take advantage of smaller, lighter, uncrewed surface vessels (USVs) that are controlled remotely by an onshore operative.

A key component of our USV fleet, our 12 m Blue Essence® have many advantages over and above our regular survey vessels. They are far safer, more fuel-efficient and produce 95 % fewer carbon emissions than our regular vessels. Our hybrid fleet will help us reach our net zero by 2035 ambitions, covering all carbon emissions from our operations.

A partnership approach with a forward-looking provider

These days it’s tough to find skilled surveyors and engineers who are willing to work offshore for around 180 days a year. At the pace the offshore wind industry is growing, compounded with the difficulty to find skilled staff, this has led us to develop our ROCs.

To ensure the long-term sustainability of our business, processing and analysing data is increasingly carried out by our global network of onshore ROCs that delivers Geo-data insights to clients via our data delivery and engagement platform, VirGeo®. This approach has enabled us to move more roles and therefore staff from offshore to onshore positions, which has improved their work-life balance and allowed us to help attract and retain a talented and more diverse workforce with various skillsets and expertise.

Early insights

Digitalised processes track and manage the progress of data through the data collection workflow. This is revolutionising data management and delivery in the offshore wind sector. For example, automation allows acquired data to be processed and analysed more quickly. We know that the Geo-data insights we provide are often on the critical path for our clients’ projects, so early delivery of high-quality insights is a necessity.

Data at your fingertips

Our digital workflows all feed into VirGeo®. Clients can access their data and information in near real time from any device, at any point in time. VirGeo® is also about enabling clients to visualise and interpret their Geo-data and easily share it internally or with their contractors. We’re busy developing additional functionality in the form of user-friendly tools that will allow clients to manipulate the data and perform engineering assessments on the platform themselves.

Conclusion

Many survey companies simply don’t have the connectivity or resources to deliver high volumes of data quickly enough to offshore wind developers. But there are many solutions available to help meet their data needs like the use of more efficient and sustainable remote and autonomous technologies, and digitalising data collection and management workflows. Combined, these can deliver early insights and real-time results to the developers, so they can hit their project milestones on-time.

Did you know?

The offshore wind sector has seen many changes during the last 25 years:

• The first projects were designed using only a few megabytes of Geo-data, but today’s sites routinely involve datasets of more than 30 terabytes

• The average footprint of a development has expanded by a factor of 400 to nearly 200 km²

• Turbine blades are longer – from 17 m over 25 years ago to 90 m now

• The daily production capacity of a turbine has increased by a factor of 22 to 11 MW