Page 58: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Nov/Dec 2022)

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DIGITALIZATION DIGITAL TWINS © Principle Power

Digital Twins are real-time, virtual representations of assets such as foating wind turbines he world is in the midst of a huge challenge. To areas and are highly exposed to the elements. Unlike other avoid the worst of climate change and leave a offshore industries, wind turbines are trickier to navigate habitable planet for future generations, we must safely in bad weather without the protection of platforms. transition to net-zero emissions by 2050. Also, weather windows limit the time work can be con-

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One technology that will be critical in the transition is ducted safely and ef?ciently. If a signi?cant issue of fault ?oating offshore wind, which, although in its adolescence, requires a turbine shutdown, it may have to remain inac- is a rapidly maturing technology with enormous potential. tive for some time if the weather does not permit engineers

In European seas, approximately 80% of the world’s off- to reach it safely to bring it back online - resulting in a loss shore wind resource potential is in water deeper than 60 of time and money. meters, where the most reliable renewable energy technol- A lack of reliable data is also slowing progress. As a rela- ogy that can be built is ?oating wind turbines. tively new industry, ?oating wind has little performance data to draw on to inform engineers of design improvements that could be made to make operations more ef?cient.

Obstacles to Growth Holding the Industry Back

To date, design safety factors have also been based on

However, there are several barriers to growth that are hampering the potential of offshore wind and putting at conservative factors commonly used in the offshore oil & gas space, which, while helpful, are not directly applicable. risk the transition to net-zero 2050.

The ?rst of many challenges is the growing expense of With the data made available via new and exciting tech- nology, designers can challenge these conservative factors sending technicians offshore to perform routine mainte- nance or ?x issues due to their location far out at sea. To yield to optimize the design for the speci?c risks and failure im- the highest output, ?oating wind farms are located in remote pacts aligned with ?oating wind projects.

58 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM