Words: Jan-Hein Reeringh, Damen Shipyards Group
As Europe strives to reach its ambitious 2020 renewable energy targets and with the trend for offshore wind farms to move into deeper and more challenging waters further from the shore – using bigger turbines and foundations – Damen Shipyards is making sure it is developing innovative solutions to serve the needs of the industry – both now and for the future.
Anyone involved in the offshore wind industry knows the pressure to get the costs down. There are various trends in the market that will play a big role in influencing the so-called Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) and Damen is proactive in seeing where it can contribute to making the industry more cost efficient, considering both vessel types and total logistical concepts for wind farms.
Customers are already benefiting from Damen vessels in the offshore wind sector. For instance, Damen’s survey vessels and the heavy lift DP2 transport and installation vessels of Jumbo, which recently installed 131 Transition Pieces in the same amount of days at the Greater Gabbard Wind Farm, are just a few examples. Then there are the well-known Damen Shoalbusters, Multi Cats and the revolutionary Twin Axe Fast Crew Supplier 2610.
Damen has been in the sector for some time, but six months ago the company decided to employ its own “offshore wind czar” to drive the business forward. Peter Robert, Offshore Wind Business Development Manager, says Damen wants to help the industry to expedite these developments and is therefore working in close cooperation with all other parties in the value chain.
“As a shipbuilding company we need to understand the challenges and developments in the industry so we can work together to reduce the cost of energy. In fact many of the current issues in the offshore wind business, whereby standardisation is used with the aim of reducing costs, have already been running for quite some years through the veins of Damen.
