The removal and re-deployment process is just as quick and simple but works in reverse. From now on all commissioning work is carried out from the work platform, which is accessed by the boat landing. Once ballasted the tower is safe and can be left. Once the GBS has been manoeuvred and settled on the sea bed in the desired position it is fully ballasted with sea water. Once on location, the floating Gravity Buoyant Structure (GBS) is boarded and the ballasting valves connected through hoses to the pumps are opened.Īs the GBS fills with pumped water, it begins to sink in a descent that is controlled by both tugs paying out their lines to keep the structure in the correct position.Īs the GBS drops below the surface, the tower remains vertical. The second tug not only provides redundancy for safety purposes, but is also used to expedite the ballasting process during the actual installati on. It is towed out using two basic offshore tugs. Sea Breeze is a "Float-out-and-Sink" based design designed to minimise offshore assembly. Sea Breeze gives wind farm owners the ability to retain and re-use those components with longer service lives, through onshore refits drastically reducing longer term refurbishment costs and also increasing the lifetime viability of every wind farm that utilises Ocean Resource's Sea Breeze design. Modular design also has the advantages when considering that not all WTG components will reach the end of their serviceable lives simultaneously. Sea Breeze is designed on a simple modular basis, thus allowing all components to be mass produced very economically on assembly lines principals through numerous competitive suppliers anywhere in the country and brought together for final commissioning on any waterside slipways and docks.
Thirdly, Ocean acknowledged that Sea Breeze must be easily deployable and recoverable with nothing more than standard offshore tugs in order to offer wind farm developers both the flexibility of very short lead times for deployment and relocation and remove the current cost impediments of using jack up vessels. Working back from this, it made sense that if Sea Breeze could easily be recovered without damage to the sea bed could also be easily returned to the shore for servicing and maintenance at a fraction of the cost of maintaining any wind turbines fixed offshore. Ocean Resource started at the end point for the intended working life, considering what the economic impact on lifetime profitability would be, if decommissioning or a replacement correcting any legacy impact was prohibitively expensive. The aim is always for the lowest possible costs for manufacture, installation, maintenance, operation and ultimately removal or re-deployment. Sea Breeze was designed from the outset to minimise the lifetime costs of shallow water wind farms through the use of simple modular designs easily produced and replicated to a high standard without the need for specialised and expensive fabrication and installation techniques. Large arrays commissioned in months rather than years Installation cost 10% that of pile based WTGs
#Sea breeze tower series#
Sea Breeze is designed for low cost series production using pre fabrication assembly line methods. Sea Breeze can support both 2 and 3 bladed offshore Wind turbine Generators (WTGs) as well as future Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs). Sea Breeze is a concrete Gravity Buoyant System (GBS) foundation suitable for the largest wind turbine towers sited in waters up to 60m.
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