The Carbon Trust Offshore Wind Accelerator has announced the winners of its latest innovation competition to find novel methods to inspect offshore wind substructures.
The OWA competition targeted companies with new or adaptable techniques for inspection of offshore wind foundations.
Entries were sought to address the four specific challenges: weld inspection for monopile foundations, weld inspection for jacket foundations, grout inspection for monopile foundations and grout inspection for jacket foundations.
Oceaneering International Services Limited won the weld inspection for monopile foundations category with the development of an inspection tool adapted from previous use in oil and gas.
Oceaneering was also joint winner of the weld inspection for jacket foundation challenge in which it provided an innovative technique for inspection of nodes. Kraken Robotics developed a high-resolution laser imaging sensor for inspection of subsea assets.
Geosolutions UKCS, in collaboration with Ashtead Technology and Hydrason, won the grout inspection for jacket foundations section with its technique based on the use of innovative sonar to detect gaps, cracks and disbanding of grout.
Uniper Technologies, which has developed an ultrasonic interferometric technique with the British Geological Survey, was joint winner for the Grout inspection for monopile foundations. Geosolutions won with the same technology as for the jacket inspection.
Offshore Wind Accelerator project manager Michael Stephenson said: “This competition has once again shown the impressive level of innovation and ingenuity that exists within the industry.”
Image: reNEWS
Carbon Trust crowns innovators
By EBS