FORCE Technology, Institut de la Corrosion from France, Vattenfall A/S and DONG Energy A/S have partnered up to create a Joint Industry Project that aims at generating realistic and sufficient data to update corrosion control design guidelines specifically for the offshore wind farm structures.
Offshore wind farm owners and operators are hereby invited to join the project in order to gain more comprehensive knowledge about corrosion of offshore wind farm structures.
An information meeting has been held and more operators in the offshore renewable energy industry have indicated their interest in the project.
The main purpose of the project is to lessen the expenses related to deterioration of offshore wind farm foundations and to increase their lifespan by optimizing the design of the structures, as recent findings have shown that the current corrosion control on offshore wind foundations, internally and externally, may be scarce.
The Joint Industry Project will be divided into three phases throughout three years. The first phase involves studying relevant literature and collecting experiences, after which the second phase follows, focusing on data collection on existing offshore sites, such as measuring current demand, corrosion rates and cathodic protection performance. Project documentation, guidelines and recommendations will be issued in the third and final phase.
The final contract was scheduled to be agreed and signed by the end of February or the beginning of March 2013. However, this has been delayed due to some minor obstacles mainly associated to the configuration of the contract, Lars Nøhr-Nielsen, Project Manager from FORCE Technology, told OffshoreWIND by e-mail.
Consequently, the project, which was expected to start in April/May, will most likely be initiated in the summer of this year, Mr. Nøhr-Nielsen said.
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Offshore WIND Staff, March 14, 2013; Image: FORCE Technology