Offshore wind farm owner pilots autonomous systems
The Autonomous Surveyor USV on its way to a survey deployment in the Deutsche Bucht offshore wind farm (Source: Subsea Europe Services)
Toronto-based Northland Power, owner of the Deutsche Bucht offshore wind farm in the North Sea, has completed joint tests with Germany’s Subsea Europe Services to use uncrewed surface vessels (USV) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) for surveying and inspecting operations at the facility.
The July 2023 tests were designed to try and develop Subsea Europe’s USV, Autonomous Surveyor, for multibeam surveying, and A.Ikanbilis, a hovering AUV, for subsea inspections including scour and marine growth surveys. The units were deployed from a mothership, the Albert Betz, a service operation vessel (SOV), already stationed on the wind farm to fulfil routine operations and maintenance (O&M) functions.
The pilot project proved successful, enabling a wider weather window for underwater survey operations. The mothership arrangement also allowed launch and recovery of the units up to Sea State 3 and data acquisition meeting preset requirements.
Sören Themann, CEO of Subsea Europe Services GmbH, said: "Our goal is to utilise assets that are already in place within the offshore wind farm O&M framework in order to improve the availability of marine data and significantly reduce the cost of acquiring it. Both Autonomous Surveyor and A.Ikanbilis performed well, acquiring actionable data within similar timeframes as conventional vehicles, including crewed survey vessel and work-class ROVs, both of which are more costly to manage and operate."
Northland Power’s Balance of Plant engineer, Jan Schmökel, commented: "Supported by the great teamwork of everybody on board, the additional personnel, equipment, and workflows for managing and using the USV and AUV for marine surveying and underwater inspections, blended in well with the overall operations of the SOV, demonstrating that the ‘mothership concept’ works in a live scenario."
Located in the German Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the Deutsche Bucht wind farm is fully owned by Northland Power and has an operating capacity of 252 MW.
