New Offshore Wind-Farm Maintenance Vessel (WMV) concept

Anglo-Dutch company Offshore Ship Designers has launched a new offshore wind farm maintenance vessel concept which is to improve uptime of deepwater wind turbines and reduce maintenance costs and carbon emissions whilst offering a solution to the logistics problem of carrying out simultaneous multiple wind turbine maintenance.

The Sea-Wind WMV vessel design is for a mother ship which would remain on station in offshore deep-water wind farms providing a safe haven for multiple numbers of catamaran workboats to carry engineers to service the turbines. 

OSD-IMT is at an advanced stage with a European shipping company and UK Ship management company to deliver the concept to wind farm operators who will be constructing Round 3 wind farms around the UK and European coast.  Most of these deep water wind farms will be a long way offshore, some up to 110 km, and each of the thousands of turbines require a routine maintenance program to be carried out in addition to any replacement component maintenance due to wear and tear.

OSD and its partners are currently in discussion with major wind farm developers and are seeking tenders for the construction of the vessels.