The number of jack-up vessel interventions in European offshore wind had doubled from 125 in 2017 to 262 in 2019, according to research from Danish analyst outfit Sea Impact.
During these two years interventions carried out by larger jack-up vessels had increased almost 14-fold, found Sea Impact’s new report that focuses on jack-up interventions in offshore wind operations and maintenance.
“This can be seen as a result of one the newest generation of turbines requiring service by larger vessels as well as some vessels transitioning from installation to O&M as they are not capable of installing the next generation turbines,” stated Sea Impact.
The O&M Jack-Up Intervention report provides a fully mapped out insight and overview into O&M jack-up interventions between 2012 and 2020.
The newest and next generation turbines will have better reliability but at the same time take longer to repair and replace the major components, the analyst outfit found.
Reflecting the general growth of the offshore wind industry the market for jack-up interventions is expected to continue to grow, said Sea Impact.
“Furthermore, while the duration of major component replacement have been higher at the newest platforms, the increasing maturity approaches to major component replacements are expected to lead to downward trend in the duration of jack-up interventions,” stated the analyst.
Sea Impact co-founder Lars Conradsen said: “I am proud to bring forward the Sea Impact intelligence that provides performance metrics not previously available across the industry.
“Developers, OEMs and vessel providers have previously had access to a subset of this information from their own projects but with our unique approach we are able to create the insight across all offshore wind projects and aggregate the data for the industry as a whole.
“This provides for valuable benchmarks, market sizing opportunities as well as input to budgeting and scheduling activities.”
Sea Impact’s approach to market intelligence involves analysing vessel position data (AIS data).