To support the UK’s offshore wind pipeline, ports need to invest billions in infrastructure to enable construction. So, what do engineers need to consider to drive successful delivery?
Following the latest Contracts for Difference (CfD) round announcement of £1.1bn for offshore wind (OSW) projects, ports across the UK will need to invest billions of pounds in new and retrofitted infrastructure to facilitate their construction. The new wind farms need to be delivered at a scale and pace not seen before to make Britain a clean energy superpower and to decarbonise the power sector by 2030 – but this also involves significant port development at scale and pace too.
From Teesside and the Humber to Scotland and Wales, there are exciting ports projects already being delivered, but we need more. The UK is the second largest OSW market globally with 13.9GW commissioned. The total project pipeline, including construction, consented and in development is approximately 75GW. This includes the approximately 30GW of fixed and floating OSW awarded in the recent ScotWind leasing rounds.
So, how can our sector support investor confidence and de-risk development?
The new generation of windfarms consists of turbines significantly larger than those installed over the past couple of decades. Most previous offshore windfarm development has used turbines which are typically 6MW to 10MW, with each blade length around 70m to 90m and nacelles weighing about 400t. Contrast that with the latest generation of turbines which are between 15MW and 20MW, have a blade length of up to 130m and maximum nacelle weight of 1,000t and you’ll begin to see where the need for port expansion comes in.
Port expansion is a complex feat of integrating master planning, detailed design, engineering and operations and applies whether the client is a port authority or operator, a developer or an energy company. In terms of investor confidence and de-risking, including understanding of the capital investment required and the operational efficiency which can be achieved, upfront modelling via a digital twin is key.
When working on the combined 154ha offshore wind marshalling and manufacturing terminals at the Port of Esbjerg in Denmark, we used our FlexTerm software to create a dynamic simulation model, with the ability to see how plans would affect areas such as capacity and operation.
In the US, Moffatt & Nichol has performed these tasks on four east coast, one Gulf Coast and two west coast OSW ports. These ports are purpose built and will support both fixed bottom and floating OSW. The two ports in California and one in Maine will be among the first ports in the world designed and built to support floating OSW.
These facilities will provide marshalling, preassembly and foundation assembly (for floating OSW) space. The capacity of the uplands and quay are 15t/m2 and 30t/m2 respectively. The quay capacity will support component load in and load out to a feeder barge or jack-up wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV), as well as tower assembly for fixed bottom ports, wind turbine generation (WTG) component integration onto floating foundations and foundation launching for ports that support floating wind. The uplands area ranges between 15ha to 70ha and the capacity is typically achieved via soil surcharge. The access channels, vessel manoeuvring basin and berths will be dredged to 10m to 12m.
It isn’t just a matter of getting the turbines out to sea, having manufacturing facilities in close proximity to the marshalling ports can have significant cost saving implications for projects, hence we’re seeing more and more ports earmark space for WTG component factories too.
This size and scale means not every port will be suitable for supporting OSW marshalling, and in the UK we assess suitability for clients on elements such as land availability, distance to the offshore site, dredging requirements, berth access, ease of environmental consenting, extent of existing port facilities, and synergy with other projects the ports are committed to developing.
Perhaps of all the elements needed, space is the most critical and there will be some ports which need to turn to land reclamation. This, in turn, opens a whole new set of engineering and consenting challenges. Here the environmental note is important because, just as with the rest of the energy transition, the permitting element of ports expansion is critical in terms of achieving project timescales and will likely require plans for mitigation via new habitat creation too.
With Scotland’s Green Volt gaining funding in the recent CfD round – it will be Europe’s first commercial scale floating wind farm – the need for ports to support floating OSW has become a reality. Moving forward, based on water depth, mapped wind speeds and potential lease areas, a large percentage of future projects will be comprised of floating OSW.
There are two distinct activities that need to happen at the floating wind marshalling port facility: foundation assembly/manufacturing and WTG component marshalling and integration. These activities can occur in two distinct ports however the most efficient system will have them co-located which would require between 40 and 70ha and in excess of 500m of berth.
Just over a year ago, there were no bids for offshore wind under the CfD. Fast forward 12 months and the pipeline is far more promising. We hope this gives ports and infrastructure investors the confidence to invest further in port infrastructure. But the civil engineering sector is the critical piece of the jigsaw, because although the horizon is bright, de-risking is a key to instilling investment confidence and ultimately transitioning away from fossil fuels.
For questions or additional information, please contact us at publicrelations@moffattnichol.com.
This article was originally published in New Civil Engineer.
