The company has also gained the right to sign a 20-year contract to sell the electricity generated by the plants through Brazil’s Chamber of Electrical Energy Commercialization.

The wind farms are scheduled to begin operation in the second half of 2013 and will generate over 390,000MWh of electricity per year,

Enel Green Power said that the power plants will allow it to double its installed capacity in Brazil.

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So what is exciting about the latest gravity base foundation to hit the market? More importantly, what sets it apart from the other foundation options currently on the table?

There are several points that make Seatower’s foundations worth sitting up and taking notice: Firstly, Norwegian wind turbine foundation technology provider, Seatower, has developed a low cost solution for quayside mass-manufacture and assembly of the foundations.

Secondly, the installation process does not require specialist vessels and is resiliant in North Sea weather conditions.

To top it off, the environmental impact throughout the foundation’s lifecycle is minimal, with no sea bed preparation requirement and no trace of the foundation post-decommissioning.

WindEnergyUpdate speaks to Petter Karal, Seatower’s CEO, to learn more about the latest offshore foundation solution.

WindEnergyUpdate: Seatower has developed self-installing gravity bases for offshore wind. The technology has been used – and proven  – in the offshore oil and gas industry. How does the technology differ for use in the offshore wind sector?

Petter Karal: We believe this is the biggest R&D undertaking into offshore wind foundations ever. There are many differences between the requirements of building a huge one-off oil installation in 400 metre deep Fjords, and for mass-production in facilities close to European offshore wind farms. The logistics and the value chain processes are dramatically different.

When you are talking about mass-producing the gravity bases for a range of water depths at a range of locations – East and West UK, Germany, France, and Netherlands – you need to be able to build at site. However, the facilities at the quayside are very different, as is the draft available, which requires some new bottom-up thinking.

The load requirements are also very different – the load on a wind turbine is very different from the load on any given oil and gas topside. Typically, oil and gas platforms are designed for maximum load waves. The wind turbine and foundation on the other hand, are designed for fatigue and the effect of vibrations over a span of 20-25 years. There are also more overturning moments of load that affects the point high above the sea level.

So the design of the wind turbine foundation is driven by fatigue rather than maximum load.

The economics of building a one-off foundation for an oil and gas installation also has a different scope in terms of equipment and materials requirement. For offshore wind farms, the assembly line needs to be cost effective and materials need to be readily available (in other words, we need to use standard grade steel and concrete).

WindEnergyUpdate: When you talk about mass production, at what rate could the Cranefree turbine foundations be turned out and what are the major limiting factors?

Petter Karal: We are planning for building up to 200 foundations per year for one of the bigger Round 3 projects, which is equivalent to 100,000 tonnes of steel and 45,000 tonnes of concrete. This is a huge amount in terms of world supply.

The question is whether this can be freed up from other sources. If you started using special grade steel, you would almost certainly limit your access to supply.

Scalability is a very important aspect of the development process. We have heard potential customers discuss a peak rate of 10GW per year being installed (roughly 2000 turbines per year).

For this we would require a couple of thousand skilled welders  – and I’m not even sure that there are even that many in the UK at present, so a big question is: Where will the skilled welders and other skilled workers come from?

WindEnergyUpdate: Seatower has developed a low-cost industrial process for the manufacture, assembly, and installation of gravity-base foundations. How much quayside land is required for the prefabricated steel sections to be stored and assembled?

Petter Karal: One of the main benefits of the concept is the fabrication and logistics side. We are flexible and adaptable, which takes out some of the risk. Our typical throughput (around 40-50 foundations per year), would require around 25 acres, or 100,000 metres squared. For one of the bigger Round 3 projects, you would require roughly three times the land space.

Compared to any other way of getting foundations built, our land requirement is modest. Furthermore, the land requirement doesn’t scale proportionally with the number of foundations – less of a buffer is required for higher throughput.

We also require a quayside where pre-fabricated steel could be delivered and a berth for the vessel that brings them.

On the drawing board we have plans to carry out the entire pre-fabrication and construction at the same plant in the UK. At one end we would have fabrication and at the other, assembly. We have a potential site capable of this.

WindEnergyUpdate: How does the Cranefree system allow for a bigger weather window for installation than you would normally have for conventional foundations?

Petter Karal: As the name suggests, no crane is required for the installation of these foundations. Most foundations to date have used cranes.

Our system can withstand any weather in the North Sea. The ocean tugs used for towing and installing the foundations are built to operate in harsh conditions, so the only limiting factor is when conditions are too rough to operate on deck of the tugs.

When using cranes, it is a delicate and risky operation, with very low tolerance for high waves and rough conditions.

The advantage of our system that you only need a good forecast 12 hours ahead, so you have a short weather window – the advantage of which is that short good weather windows occur more frequently than the longer (good) weather windows required for crane installations.

Also, longer weather windows require a higher safety margin.  For instance if your wave tolerance is 2m and your operation takes 72 hours, the rules say you need a 72-hour forecast of less than 1m waves to proceed.  If your operation takes only 12 hours, the rules allow you to start if 1.5m waves have been forecast.

The installation operation with the crane-free system usually takes less than 12 hours from positioning to the skirts have been fully embedded in the seabed.

WindEnergyUpdate: Seatower’s gravity-base foundations do not require seabed preparation. What environmental and financial advantage does this confer?

Petter Karal: When you dredge the seabed you disturb the benthos, which is the marine life in the topsoil, and this destroys habitats. You incur a lot of costs relating to offshore dredging equipment, as well as weather delays, all of which increase the risk of the project.

Putting down a gravel bed is costly and risky as well. Some gravity bases require gravel beds up to the size of a soccer pitch. It needs to be very precisely laid and has no environmental advantage.

When driving piles, the subsea noise from the hammers disturbes marine mammals, spawning herring and other ocean life. Above water noise can create near-shore disturbance.

Regulators are increasingly concerned about the environmental impact of large-scale pile hammering, and developers are increasingly facing restrictions on this activity.  The operation also adds cost and risk to the project.

WindEnergyUpdate: What maximum water depth is the Cranefree foundation designed for?

Petter Karal: The Cranefree Gravity is economical down to about 50 metres water depth.  However, we have ways to build cost-efficiently down to as much as 100 metres based on Cranefree technology.

WindEnergyUpdate: While the foundation technology is crane free, the turbine installation phase is not. Is Seatower working on solutions for quayside assembly of both the foundation and turbine? If not, why?

Petter Karal: This is a very interesting question. We have been working on such solutions and have come up with conceptual designs. However, our main customers don’t see a big benefit in the combination, citing several reasons:

Firstly, current turbine installation methods are not as big a cost-driver as foundation installation.  Foundation installation costs 2.5 – 3 times more than the turbine installation.

Installation of a tower and a turbine is much more standardized than the installation operation of foundations, which need to be adapted to seabeds and other local conditions. Turbine installation is far more homogenous and the work takes place above water.

Secondly, the turbines that are available in the marketplace now and in the coming years are not designed for the movements and tilt of being transported in pre-installed condition.

Third, customers specify that they prefer the contracts (for turbine and foundation installation) to remain separable.

And fourth, the dependency that would be created between the supply of the turbine and foundation does not appeal to the customer.  Both the turbine logistics and the foundation logistics are enough of a challenge separately.  Intertwining the two projects would increase their complexity and make both more vulnerable to delays.

There are so many reasons why you don’t want to go there and our customers have asked us not to.

WindEnergyUpdate: When it comes to decommissioning, what are the advantages of gravity-base foundations over other foundations?

Petter Karal: In the oil and gas sector, decommissioning is costly and is a real pain in the neck. The only good thing about it is that the cost is so far in the future that in the financial models the cost diminishes due to the interest rates. So a decommissioning plan is important.

With the Cranefree gravity-base foundations, the decommissioning concept is straightforward. You pump the sand out; pump the water out; the foundation becomes buoyant, floats to surface and is towed to shore. So you have the means of lifting and moving the foundations only using tugs and pumps.

The traditional foundations used in offshore wind and oil and gas require cranes and cutting technologies. For example, to decommission the concrete gravity foundation used at Thornton Bank they will probably require a crane and they will be left with a 3000 tonne piece of concrete.

We will take our foundation with us, including the concrete injected between the skirt and the seabed if required. All that will be left behind is the rock used for scour protection, but we are already looking into ways to deal with this as well.

WindEnergyUpdate: Where have Seatower’s foundations been deployed?

Petter Karal: None of Seatower’s crane free gravity base foundations have been installed yet, however, many gravity base foundations that have been installed to date, such as the Condeeps – around 20 have been installed. In that sense, the technology is proven.

We expect to see orders in the next 3 – 15 months.

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Gamesa’s Managing Director for Human Resources, Juana María Fernández, and trade unions representatives CCOO-FITEQA, CCOO-FI, MCA-UGT, FIA-UGT and ELA at midday today signed Gamesa’s Equality Plan, applicable to all of the company’s workplaces worldwide. The plan, agreed upon with trade union representatives following a negotiation period, will remain in force until 31 December 2012 and will be automatically renewed thereafter – in the absence of an updated version –, in accordance with Spain’s Law for Effective Equality between women and men. This initiative is intended as a general framework for action at all of the workplaces worldwide in which Gamesa has a presence, subject to local legislation. The plan includes a workplace harassment prevention protocol and outlines measures to provide support to victims of gender-based violence.

The Equality Plan is geared towards strengthening Gamesa’s culture of diversity and equality, encouraging non-discriminatory hiring and fostering equality of opportunity between women and men in career development and promotion and facilitating work-life balance. Twenty-five percent of Gamesa’s global workforce is now made up of women, which sets a good example for the energy industry. “We hope that initiatives like this one will contribute to improving our awareness and activities in the areas of our corporate culture, career development and promotion, recruiting processes and internal communications”, say the signatories to the agreement.

Standing Committee on Diversity and Equality

To ensure compliance with and a successful roll-out of the Gamesa Equality Plan, the company creates a Standing Committee on Diversity and Equality, made up of five company representatives and 10 trade union representatives. The company will establish a series of indicators for assessing its progress on equality issues, subject to quarterly review by the Standing Committee and annual review by the Gamesa Management Board.

The Gamesa Equality Plan’s areas of action

Gamesa’s Equality Plan is divided into seven areas of action:

• Leadership and culture. Encourage and raise awareness of Gamesa’s culture of diversity and equality. To this end, the company creates a Standing Committee on Diversity and Equality, establish assessment indicators (subject to periodic review) and conduct training sessions and periodic employee opinion surveys.
• Communications. Strengthen Gamesa’s culture of diversity and equality, at both the in-house and external levels. Highlights of these activities include developing a guide on language and image which advocates for diversity-related issues, enhancing the visibility of women in management positions at the company, and notifying stakeholders of the commitments Gamesa has adopted to promote equality issues.
• Recruiting. Continue to encourage non-discriminatory hiring and establish specific programmes for recruiting and promotion of the under-represented gender.
• Career development and promotion. Implement programmes to identify in-house talent, to provide a candidate base of qualified women and men with the potential to be promoted to management positions. Similarly, design management skill development programmes geared towards women in all areas of the business who have been identified as having development potential.
• Work-life balance. Encourage a culture that facilitates work-life balance. To this end, the company will distribute a framework document among all employees, outlining their basic rights in work-life balance issues.
• Prevention of harassment, through implementation of a Protocol on Sexual or Gender-based Harassment and on Harassment or Bullying. This protocol has been in force since 2009.
• Safeguards for victims of gender-based violence. In addition to the provisions of Spain’s Law on Comprehensive Protection against Gender Violence, Gamesa will institute supplementary measures to lend support to victims of gender-based violence.

A commitment integrated into human resource management policies

Gamesa’s commitment to cultural diversity, the fight against discrimination and support for equality of opportunity is fully integrated into the company’s human resource management practices. These policies are embodied in a range of initiatives, and the level of commitment now increases thanks to the agreement and trade union representatives’ decision to sign it.  These commitments are also outlined in Gamesa’s Corporate Social Responsibility Principles and Code of Conduct.

Meanwhile, the company offers measures to promote work-life balance, tailored to the diversity of its workforce and its business operations, which will be applicable depending upon local legislation and the characteristics of each workplace around the world.

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Orissa-based Altrade Group focuses primarily on the iron ore mining industry and is further diversifying into the real estate and hospitality sectors. This project is the Group’s maiden venture into wind energy, and once completed will generate enough electricity to power over 6,000 households. The Group also has plans to register the projects under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM).
The project will extend Suzlon’s leadership of the Rajasthan wind market taking the total installed base to over 700 MW.

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“If you had held this event three years ago, you could probably have fitted it into a van,” joked Brazilian energy minister Marcio Zimmerman during the conference opening session, which was attended by 750 delegates. “But now, you need a large conference center. This reflects the tremendous growth of wind energy in Brazil, and the historical success of the auctions. Wind power is now a firm component of the Brazilian energy mix, and it is here to stay!”

During the three Brazilian wind and renewable energy auctions in December 2009 and August 2010, a total of more than 3,850 MW have been contracted, spread across 141 projects. Despite the price achieved by the winning bids, the volume of the contracted capacity coupled with government efforts to create a favourable environment for wind power raise expectations for strong market development. International players are eager to position themselves in this promising market.

“The Brazilian market is now becoming very attractive for the big global players, and they all want to get in on the ground floor,” said Steve Sawyer, GWEC’s Secretary General. “All the ingredients are here for Brazil to grow to a large market very quickly. This event provides the ideal platform for all the interested players to network and discover the opportunities in Brazilian wind energy.”

The Brazil Windpower 2010 event was attended by 1,836 industry participants from 27 countries, and sponsored by 21 companies, including Eletrobras, Vestas and Wobben Enercon. The event’s exhibition was composed of 55 exhibitors, who presented their products and services on a surface of 1,800 sqm.

“We are very pleased with the great interest this event has received in this relatively young market,” said Pedro Perelli, Secretary General of the Brazilian Wind Energy Association (ABEEolica). “The timing was good, and the Brazilian wind market is booming. We are confident that the event will be even more successful next year,” he said, launching Brazil Windpower 2010.

The Brazil Windpower 2010 conference & exhibition will take place during the first week of September 2011.

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With a total of 2,396 megawatts of offshore wind capacity already connected to the European grid (333 of which came in the first half of 2010 alone) Europe clearly stands at the forefront of the offshore wind industry. With further projects in the pipeline from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and most recently France, Europe will continue to be the largest offshore wind energy-producing region in the world for years to come.

Utility-led projects are the lynchpin of the offshore wind industry’s continuing progress. Justin Wilkes, Director of Policy at EWEA recently noted: “Projects led by utilities are less affected thanks to their ability to fund investments from their balance sheets”.

However, utility scale developers at the forefront will be seeking out only companies capable of providing and meeting the necessary challenges imposed on the industry today.

RWE Innogy, Vattenfall Wind Power, Mainstream Renewable Power, London Array Ltd, A2SEA and many more leading offshore wind industry companies will meet this October in London to discuss, debate and appraise the latest offshore construction and installation strategies to reduce costs, optimize efficiency, and improve overall ROI.

This offshore critical conference has already drawn over 150 wind professionals from across the industry and continues to grow day by day.

The direct focus of the event will be on successful farshore, deepwater installation and construction strategies. The agenda focuses on providing best practice steps to recruiting and training a fully compliable H&S workforce that will ensure construction excellence and a positive growth of offshore wind farms for years to come.

A select range of utilities, developers, manufacturers, contractors, port owners, vessel suppliers, R&D experts, consultants and service providers are gearing up to debate and discuss these key topics at the 2nd annual offshore wind construction, installation and commissioning conference.

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Investment in European wind energy is on an upward curve but would be even higher if turbines were more reliable, analysts say.

Some €13bn (US$16.6bn; £10.8bn) were invested in the sector in 2009, according to the European Wind Energy Association, with €1.5bn (US$1.9bn; £1.2bn) of that going on offshore installation, and the organisation predicts both sums to rise again this year.

Some 10,000MW of wind capacity were installed across the EU last year, up 23% on 2008. Onshore capacity rose by 21% and offshore by 56%.

However, the relatively high failure rate of turbines is seen as braking growth in the sector as Europe aims to source 20% of electricity from renewables by 2020 – a dramatic scale-up compared with 8.5% today.

Too many new designs, too many unknown variables

One Dutch-led investigation, PROTEST (Procedures for Testing and Measuring wind energy systems), has found an average rate of between two to five turbine failures a year that need visits from technicians.

If that is costly and time-consuming onshore, it is significantly more so offshore, where turbines are increasingly popular because bigger turbines may be used because of a more reliable wind resource.

Jessica Holierhoek of the Energy Research Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), one of the partners in the PROTEST project, says that in the rush to produce frequent new designs – and in large quantities – manufacturers risk using inadequate components.

“There is no time to check whether the components are loaded beyond the design load limits or to improve the design procedures,” Holierhoek  says.

Previous studies have shown that the loads on mechanical components are not being calculated with enough accuracy, according to PROTEST, whereas the procedures for rotor blades and towers are much more specific because they are critical for safety.

“Most failures are seen in the electrical components and control systems but it’s the high cost of problems in the mechanical systems – the gearbox, drive train, pitch and yaw systems, for example – that causes the biggest financial burden.”

PROTEST’s other partners are Suzlon Energy GmbH, Germanischer Lloyd (GL), Hansen Transmissions International and the German Wind Energy Institute (DEWI), the University of Stuttgart and Greece’s Centre for Renewable Energy Sources.

Component quality standards reduce risk

The group’s two-and-a-half year study, using structural and aerodynamic models, has been part funded by the EU and is due to be published within the next few weeks. But Dr Holierhoek admits the most significant finding is that it is “probably not possible” to devise strict standards for all manufacturers because of the huge variety of wind turbines.

PROTEST is thus aiming to help raise the bar in terms of what can be expected in terms of component quality and suitability.

Michael Holm of Vestas agrees that potential investors are rightly focused on reliability but insists that maintenance can be efficiently priced into operational costs. Clients of the Danish wind turbine giant, with its long track record and proven technology, have no more to fear from gearbox wear and tear than a car owner going for a routine service, he says.

Issues of reliability and cost effectiveness have played a major part in Vestas’s decision to stick to gearbox transmission over direct drive, Holm adds, though the latter technology is being increasingly developed by several rivals including GE.

Vestas has also preferred to keep its turbines on the smaller side. “We could easily put a 10MW or even 15MW turbine to market but the question is: would it be cost efficient and reliable for customers?” Holm says.

“Investors don’t care if a turbine is pink or has one blade or three or four. They look at the business case and want to have the certainty that it will give a return. After the financial crisis, that’s even more the case.”

Reliability wins over investors

At the time of publication Vestas was due to host a two-day capital markets presentation in Colorado Springs for institutional investors, analysts and media, in order for company executives to highlight technological breakthroughs and pitch for greater investment in its turbines.

Michael Scheff, senior strategic supply chain manager at Mitsubishi Power System Europe Ltd in Hamburg, is equally adamant that reliability is uppermost in the minds of designers and engineers, and the ethos goes from OEMs right the way through to final delivery and maintenance.

“Reliability is an absolute need, and we do an extraordinary amount of testing to ensure we have no problems later on,” Scheff says. “We specify our needs [to OEMs] and from time to time we have to check various issues with them of course. It is natural to have to clarify points but our requirements always have to be fulfilled.”

As Holierhoek of ECN says: “High reliability of wind turbines and their components is one of the prerequisites for an economically viable exploitation of wind farms, especially for offshore. Therefore reliability needs to be increased.”

The industry appears to be of the same mind but questions remain over how it will deliver.

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Work is currently underway on three new wind farms in Western Australia, South Australia and Victoria using Vestas wind turbines, but the company is pushing for the Australian Parliament to introduce a price on carbon pollution so that the switch to clean energy occurs even faster.
“Vestas provides skilled workers with training opportunities to transform traditional job skills into the new green jobs of the future,” says Jorn Hammer, MD of Vestas Australia.
“The best thing about the wind energy industry is that most of these new jobs are being created in rural and regional communities, which diversifies the local economy and gives opportunities to local businesses,” Mr Hammer said.

In the past year, Vestas has secured major contracts to build the 111 megawatt (MW) Waterloo wind farm in mid-north South Australia, the 206 MW Collgar wind farm in Western Australia’s wheat belt, and recently signed a contract with AGL and Meridian Energy to build the 420 MW Macarthur wind farm in south-west Victoria in conjunction with Leighton Contractors.
For each project Vestas has hired new employees and is also using a number of local businesses for sub-contracting work during the construction stage.  We have already hired 76 people over the past 12 months and are set to employ even more.

In addition to direct jobs created by Vestas, a number of indirect jobs can be attributed to the company’s growing presence in Australia, including construction jobs involved in building the wind farms and related services in areas such as security, sanitation and maintenance, food and beverage supply, and travel and accommodation.
The Waterloo project has created almost 100 new jobs, the Collgar project is on track to create up to 150 new jobs, while the Macarthur project is forecast to employ up to 400 people directly and lead to a further 800 indirect jobs.

The Australian Government’s 20% Renewable Energy Target has been a key driver behind these three projects, but a price on carbon pollution will accelerate this economic growth and job creation.
“The next Australian Parliament can help create even more new jobs by supporting a price on carbon pollution and helping Australia to make the switch to clean energy,” according to Sean Sutton, President of Vestas Asia Pacific.
“Local communities in Australia should use the post-election opportunity to voice their support through their local Members of Parliament for a price on carbon pollution so we can keep investing in wind power in rural and regional areas and build the power stations of the future,” he said.

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