Orkney vessel trials demonstrate cost savings for marine energy

Scotland’s Energy Minister, Fergus Ewing, yesterday announced that the first leg of a project in Orkney funded by the Scottish Government has demonstrated the potential for considerable cost savings using the capabilities of smaller support vessels in the marine renewables industry.

The Orkney Vessel Trials project, which has been facilitated by Orkney consultancy Aquatera Ltd, in association with the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), was launched by Mr Ewing last year.

Installation, operations, and maintenance are a considerable project cost for wave and tidal developers, alongside managing risk in challenging sea conditions. The objectives of the study were to investigate and trial ways to reduce costs of operations required for the marine energy industry, to demonstrate how a project involving many companies, vessels and people can be carried out to high safety standards, and to demonstrate that vessels available in Orkney waters can carry out complex marine operations efficiently and cost effectively.

The Orkney project took place over the winter, with 20 local organisations, and over 120 individuals, working together on over 60 vessel operations.

The project comprised a set of six performance trials covering workboat positioning and dynamic loading, gantry barge positioning and device deployment, clump weight friction, ROV operations, responses to man overboard situations in tidal currents, and dynamics of buoy submergence.

The outcomes have now been published to assist project developers in selecting fit-for-purpose and cost-effective vessels for future projects.

One example outcome is that the project demonstrated that marine energy developers could save 70-80% on installation costs by utilising a gantry barge and other local vessels rather than commissioning large dynamically positioned offshore construction vessels.