Strainstall, a monitoring solutions developer and part of James Fisher and Sons plc, has been awarded a contract to provide mooring monitoring for the 30MW Hywind pilot park – the world’s first floating offshore wind farm being developed by Statoil off the coast of Peterhead, Scotland.
The site will consist of five, 6MW floating turbines, with production of the first turbine expected in late 2017.
Each floating turbine will be moored to the seabed via MacGregor’s chain stoppers which will incorporate Strainstall’s strain ring monitoring sensors to provide mooring load information.
According to Strainstall, the strain ring sensors fitted to MacGregor’s Pusnes chain stoppers ”can sense minute changes in tension enabling detailed understanding of the load and fatigue life of the floating structures, providing detailed insight for future design developments.”
The mooring monitoring system will monitor the different stresses placed on the turbines that could affect the performance of the structures and the mooring lines.
Large floating turbines induce vibrations due to the high winds and swell from the deepwater site in the North Sea. High winds will put additional stresses on the structures and mooring, so having a monitoring system to measure tension is crucial to the safe ongoing operation of the site, Strainstall said.
“We have worked with MacGregor for many years providing our unique strain ring product for their pusnes chain stopper mooring applications in the oil and gas industry and we are delighted to work with them to bring our combined technologies into the renewables sector for this world first project, ” said Simon Everett, managing director at Strainstall.
“Strainstall has considerable experience of providing mooring monitoring solutions and we see an exciting opportunity to bring this knowledge to the floating renewables market as it develops over the coming years.”