Renewables software specialist Sennen appointed to South Fork Wind in USA
Sennen is working with global renewable energy company Ørsted to pilot an innovative digital system.
Based on Sennen’s existing tried and tested technology, this new system will help Ørsted to plan and deliver the construction of New York’s first offshore wind farm – South Fork Wind.
Sennen’s software has focused on wind farm operations and maintenance to date, so this marks a new phase in the company’s product development.
The system will help Ørsted deploy teams performing different construction phase tasks simultaneously without risk of interfering with each other’s activities. This is a particular issue for on-site multi-contractor management. Without an automated system, interruption to work can happen, resulting in wasted resources and delays.
With this new tool, Ørsted will have full sight of contractor movements, enabling them to plan and allocate construction activity easily, efficiently and safely.
It will be run in parallel with existing processes, to measure potential improvements.
Gaby Amiel, co-founder and chief executive of Sennen, said: “The rapid expansion of the offshore wind industry needs to be supported by intelligent digital systems that will enable growth to happen as quickly and safely as possible. That is what we specialise in at Sennen and we’re excited to be developing our offer so that we can support operators during the entire lifecycle of a wind farm – from construction and beyond.
“We need companies like Ørsted to test new ideas and ways of working so that the industry can continue to innovate and grow. We’re delighted that they have chosen us for this project. It allows us to test and develop this new software on a real wind farm, which will offer invaluable learning.”
South Fork Wind Farm will be the first completed utility-scale offshore wind farm in US waters, with the project expected to be operational by the end of 2023. It will power around 70,000 New York homes each year.
By 2030, it is Ørsted’s ambition to have installed 30GW of offshore wind globally. The company develops, constructs, owns and operates offshore wind farms in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK. It also has development projects in Taiwan, Poland and the USA. Ørsted has five offshore wind farms currently in construction.
David Bould, Head of UK and IE Ventures and Open Innovation at Ørsted, said: “The work with Sennen is a great example of how Ørsted collaborates with innovative companies in our UK and Ireland supply chain to the benefit of both organisations.
“By using Sennen’s technology on one of our live construction projects, we get a valuable, early opportunity to further improve our construction activities – reducing cost and risk.
“We’ll continue to work with Sennen on development of their product and help secure their route to market, both in the UK and Ireland and across our global portfolio, building on previous support from the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership.”
The development of Sennen’s new construction tool has received £112,000 grant funding from the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership (OWGP) which supports high growth companies in the UK supply chain.
