Services & Solutions

OWECS offers a large range of services for your offshore and onshore wind projects. Our key services comprise:

  • Short- to long-term project support on high level or detailed level 
  • Design assessment and optimization
  • Site assessment including processing of site parameters for design purposes
  • Design load expertise
  • Structural assessments and design
  • Preparation and assessment of project documents
  • Seminars and R&D including software development

 

Read more about our key services here and please contact us in case of questions or for details on additional service areas

Short- to long-term project support on high level or detailed level

Offshore wind energy projects are executed in different phases, from initial feasibility studies to detailed design, fabrication, installation, service life period and finally decommissioning. Different activities and requirements in each phase along with the involvement of various (design) parties introduce a significant complexity to offshore wind projects. We account for this complexity by offering project support on different levels and during all phases in order to achieve smooth and efficient project executions, including e.g. by:

  • acting as owner’s engineer
  • acting as lead engineer for various disciplines such as primary steel design, hydraulics or load calculations for turbine and foundation
  • providing expertise from integrated consideration regarding modelling of structure, loads and site conditions for all project phases and foundation types
  • representation in project meetings
  • offering second opinion and expert review on various topics in all phases of design process including general problem solving in daily design practise
  • coordinating interfaces between different parties in the design process e.g. foundation designer, turbine supplier, certifier, met-ocean specialists
  • assessing, supporting and optimizing of various tasks in design time schedule based on experience from large number of projects
  • performing parallel and complementary load calculations

Short- to long-term project support on high level or detailed level

Offshore wind energy projects are executed in different phases, from initial feasibility studies to detailed design, fabrication, installation, service life period and finally decommissioning. Different activities and requirements in each phase along with the involvement of various (design) parties introduce a significant complexity to offshore wind projects. We account for this complexity by offering project support on different levels and during all phases in order to achieve smooth and efficient project executions, including e.g. by:

  • acting as owner’s engineer
  • acting as lead engineer for various disciplines such as primary steel design, hydraulics or load calculations for turbine and foundation
  • providing expertise from integrated consideration regarding modelling of structure, loads and site conditions for all project phases and foundation types
  • representation in project meetings
  • offering second opinion and expert review on various topics in all phases of design process including general problem solving in daily design practise
  • coordinating interfaces between different parties in the design process e.g. foundation designer, turbine supplier, certifier, met-ocean specialists
  • assessing, supporting and optimizing of various tasks in design time schedule based on experience from large number of projects
  • performing parallel and complementary load calculations

Design assessment and optimization

Optimized design solutions depend on a number of aspects such as the quality of underlying site data, modelling of structural characteristics, simulation of loads, national requirements, fabrication and installation constraints. Furthermore, a strong degree of interactions and mutual influences with respect to the resulting design solution are introduced by the individual design steps/aspects and different (design) parties. Hence, it is essential to implement an integrated design approach on basis of an excellent global overview and understanding of interactions in order to obtain safe and cost-efficient design solutions. In this context we can offer a various services related to design assessments and optimizations such as:

  • support on (foundation) design activities in all design phases, e.g. early feasibility studies, conceptual design and detailed design
  • assessment of individual and integrated foundation/turbine tower design for safe, yet optimized designs
  • odentification of design optimization potentials from e.g. site data, structural modelling approaches and load assumptions
  • support on the clustering strategy definition in wind farm designs

Site assessment including processing of site parameters for design purposes

Offshore wind farm designs are site specific. Well prepared databases of site conditions including processing of site parameters for design purposes can help to avoid delays in the project schedule and avoid overly conservative and therefore non-economic design solutions. While the quality of the site parameters has a direct influence on the detailed design solution it is important to keep in mind that even in early design and project phases of a proper assessment and processing of site data can be of high value. This is for example due to the fact that fundamental decisions such as the preferred substructure concept and the initialization time in the detailed design phase strongly depend on the available data. Furthermore, an ongoing trend towards stricter requirements from certifying bodies on the site parameters for design purposes such as the wind-wave correlations can be observed in the industry. We can support your projects by relevant services such as:

  • processing of met-ocean conditions for establishment of design met-ocean parameters
  • development of detailed design load case tables with load optimized met-ocean parameters including probability set-ups for fatigue
  • application state-of-the-art approaches for establishment of wind-wave correlations in design load cases

Design load expertise

Design loads have naturally a significant influence on the quality of the obtainable design solution. Establishment of relevant design load cases as well as selection of load calculation approaches with all relevant details can be subject of large variations which, in turn, result in potentially large variations for the governing design loads. It is therefore essential for cost-optimized design solutions to apply smart realizations of design load cases along with an adequate load calculation approach on basis of the specific design phase, available information and involved design parties & tools. We offer extensive experience on load calculation aspects for offshore wind turbines including knowledge of requirements & possibilities for load iteration with most players (e.g. DONG, VESTAS, SIEMENS, ALSTOM, RAMBOLL, COWI) in our services which include e.g.:

  • smart interpretation and realizations of design load cases leading to optimized structural designs based on design phase, foundation type and design tools
  • in-depth understanding of structural behaviour including dynamics for offshore wind turbines with different foundation types and influence on design loads
  • definition of optimal load calculation approaches including iterative processes and interface management of design parties in different design phases
  • parallel or complementary load calculations
  • design load assessments

Structural assessments and design

OWECS can support on structural assessment and design of various aspects in relation to primary and secondary steel.

  • design of primary and secondary structures for offshore wind foundations
  • assessment of existing foundation designs and details
  • analysis of specific aspects, e.g. seismic analyses in the time domain.
  • cost-optimized secondary steel design solutions in corporation with fabricators
  • high-level assessments of floating type foundations, e.g. in particular semi-submersibles, tension leg and spar-buoy
  • design optimizations e.g. by more accurate determination of stress concentration factors

Preparation and assessment of project documents

Numerous documents are established during project duration. Deadlines and contents of these document are often in conflict with challenging project schedules and available information at different design stages. The range of documents cover e.g. tender material and project proposals, design documents, site assessments and technical notes. Comprehensive and timely project documents form the basis to put the project on the right track from the beginning on and to ensure a smooth project execution. We have extensive experience with the production and assessment of various types of project documents which has been established from a long track-record of projects. As a result, we can offer highly qualified support e.g. on:

  • preparation and assessment of design documents such as design basis, design briefs, design reports, technical notes in all phases of the project
  • the foundation design tendering process including of support/assessment on scopes and technical part of tender material and proposals
  • on the documentation for the certification process
  • establishment of technical project documents in german and english language including translations of existing documents

Seminars and R&D including software development

Offshore wind energy as a field of technology is still in a maturing phase compared to e.g. the onshore wind industry, offshore oil & gas industry or more traditional energy converting technologies. Further reductions in the cost of energy and increased competitiveness requires a continuous knowledge generation and development process e.g. in order to push existing concepts and state-of-the-art design approaches beyond current limits. This objective requires a mix of research and development activities as well as a continuous streamlining of most recent project experiences into design approaches, tools and teams in order to enhance the expertise. We can offer to strengthen your projects and market position for example by the following services:

  • Seminars and lectures on various onshore & offshore wind related topics
  • Participation in internal and public R&D projects
  • General software development and project software development (e.g. FLEX5 related)
  • Establishment of or support on design tools including corresponding IT-Infrastructure

OWECS

Offshore Wind Engineering and Consultancy Services