Renewable energy vendor Siemens today announced that it can reduce transport costs for offshore wind turbines by up to 20 percent.
Announced at the EWEA 2015 international wind industry trade fair in Paris, Siemens’ new offshore transport solution saves up to one fifth of the costs in the transportation chain.
Siemens has signed a contract with transport service provider deugro Danmark, utilizing two transport vessels to link Siemens’ existing production locations in Denmark with the new production facilities in Cuxhaven in Germany and Hull in the UK.
Instead of loading the up-to-75-meter-long rotor blades and nacelles weighing around 360 metric tons by crane, the large and heavy components will be rolled on and off of these vessels. This “Roll-on/Roll-off” process is known as Ro/Ro.
Based on this experience, the company’s experts have developed the concept and deugro will now provide tailor-made transport vehicles. Siemens estimates cost savings of 15 – 20 percent compared to current transport procedures, depending on the location of the offshore wind power plant.
“With our logistics concept for D7 offshore wind turbines, we continue to leverage industrialization on our journey to lower the LCoE of offshore wind energy to below 10 cents per kilowatt hour,” said Michael Hannibal, CEO Offshore, Siemens Wind Power and Renewables Division.
“This solution will enable us to save up to one fifth of the costs in the transportation chain, depending on the location of the specific offshore wind project,” said Hannibal.
deugro Danmark will assist with shipping of the large Siemens components. Two special transport vessels, each with a length of approximately 140 meters, will be constructed. One of the vessels can transport eight nacelles of the current Siemens D7 wind turbine platform at a time. It will be launched as early as fall 2016.
The second vessel will accommodate up to 12 rotor blades and transport them from the production facility in Hull, UK, or from Aalborg, Denmark, to the installation port. Both vessels can be unloaded by crane when required.
At the EWEA 2015 international wind industry trade fair in Paris, Siemens also presented optimization measures for installation and commissioning of offshore wind turbines. The D7 nacelle can be tested on the mainland.