The G+ Global Offshore Wind Health and Safety Organisation has declared itself “disappointed” with 2019 incident data, which shows a rise in the number of injuries sustained by offshore wind workers last year.
G+ recorded a total of 123 injuries last year, during which offshore wind farm workers clocked 22.4 million labour hours.
This figure was an increase on the 118 injuries recorded in 2018, when 24.5 million hours were worked.
The increase means the total recorded injury rate per million hours worked in 2019 was 5.5 compared to 4.6 the year before.
A total of 62 lost workday injuries were also reported last year – a dramatic rise from the five year-low of 39 in 2018.
Last year was the fifth successive year that G+ incident data showed no fatalities. Though up on 2018 figures, the total recorded injury rate was lower than in the period between 2014 and 2017, during which time the total recorded injury rate fell from 6.2 to 5.8.
“Whilst we continue on a general trend of improvement in our safety performance, 2019 does show an increase in the reported number of injuries – especially those relating to lost workdays, ” said G+ chair Tove Lunde, who is head of safety, security and sustainability at Equinor New Energy Solutions.
“We are therefore disappointed with our 2019 incident data. Especially following the significant progress made the previous year,” she added.
The number of high potential incidents, defined as those that may cause a fatality or a life-changing injury, was 252. This is a slight decrease on the 256 recorded in 2018, when more hours were worked.
Some 34.1% of high potential impacts occurred on turbines, 33.3 % happened onboard vessels and 27% were logged onshore.
G+ said last year saw 92 dropped object incidents, an increase in 49% on the previous year.
“We believe this has been driven by an increase in reported near misses, which speaks for an ever-improving reporting culture within the wind industry,” G+ said.
A full copy of the G+ report can be downloaded here.