Strainstall’s new Offshore wind farm Vessel Management System (OVMS) provides the potential for significant improvements in the numerous transfer vessel movements that support operation and maintenance activities in the offshore wind energy industry.
The system builds on the very successful Integrated Mooring Monitoring Solution (IMMS) that is used extensively in the tightly regulated environment of the offshore oil and gas sector to improve the safety and effectiveness of transfer vessel operations.
Using a modular structure that is configurable according to the precise requirements of each wind farm operator, OVMS provides a comprehensive database and a monitoring and control architecture that covers the full range of transfer vessel activities: these include crew and vessel tracking, fuel consumption monitoring, real-time integration of meteorological and wave data, vessel performance monitoring and CCTV. There is full, web-accessible access to all measured data, alarms and historic information for analysis and reporting, which can be used to help streamline and improve operations and as an aid to budgeting. Crucially, the system also incorporates Strainstall’s Vessel Motion Monitoring System and Intelligent Fender modules, which enable the precise control of personnel and equipment transfers.
“We were particularly pleased to have been able to work with East Coast Charters and E.ON to successfully demonstrate the offshore wind farm vessel management system at the Scroby Sands wind farm,” commented Scott Cruttenden, Strainstall business development manager. “This highly innovative system has the potential to make a step-change contribution to the improvement of transfer vessel operations across the marine renewable energy sector. By bringing all the key data and information elements together in a customizable form – which can include a cloud database implementation – the operation of the numerous transfer vessels required to support offshore wind farms can be made more resource efficient and cost-effective, while also improving the safety of both crew and wind farm maintenance personnel.”
“East Coast Charter was pleased to have participated in the testing of the offshore wind farm vessel management system,” said Sam McNamee, general manager of East Coast Charters Ltd . “As a leader in the field of offshore wind farm support vessel operations, we are justifiably proud of our hard-earned reputation for completing even the most difficult projects on time and to the highest standards, and we maintain a keen interest in the development new and innovative technology for the efficient, effective and safe operation of vessels. While the individual components of the system are already well-proven in service, the ability to combine these into a single, integrated monitoring, management and control architecture is very much of interest to us.”
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Press release, June 24, 2013; Image: strainstall