Technology developed by Bristol renewable energy software company Sennen is to be used in the construction of New York’s first offshore wind power project.
In a new phase of development at Sennen, whose software has focused on wind farm operations and maintenance to date, its new system will be used to solve problems linked to building such a major project.
South Fork, pictured, will be the first completed utility-scale offshore wind farm in US waters. Expected to be operational by the end of this year, it will power around 70,000 homes in New York.
Based on Sennen’s existing tried and tested technology, the new system will help Danish multinational energy company Ørsted plan and deliver South Fork.
This will include enabling it to deploy teams performing different construction phase tasks simultaneously without risk of interfering with each other’s activities – a particular issue for on-site multi-contractor management.
Without an automated system, interruption to work can happen, resulting in wasted resources and delays.
By using Sennen’s new tool, Ørsted will have full sight of contractor movements, enabling it to plan and allocate construction activity easily, efficiently and safely.
Sennen co-founder and chief executive Gaby Amiel, pictured, said: “The rapid expansion of the offshore wind industry needs to be supported by intelligent digital systems that will enable growth to happen as quickly and safely as possible.
“That is what we specialise in at Sennen and we’re excited to be developing our offer so that we can support operators during the entire lifecycle of a wind farm – from construction and beyond.”
He said the business needed companies like Ørsted to test new ideas and ways of working so that the industry could continue to innovate and grow.
“We’re delighted that they have chosen us for this project. It allows us to test and develop this new software on a real wind farm, which will offer invaluable learning,” he added.
Ørsted has five offshore wind farms currently in construction as well as development projects in Taiwan, Poland and the US.
The firm, which has already developed and built – and now owns and operates – offshore wind farms in Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.
It aims to have installed 30GW of offshore wind globally by 2030.
The development of Sennen’s new construction tool has received £112,000 grant funding from the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership, which supports high growth companies in the UK supply chain.
Ørsted head of UK and IE ventures and open innovation David Bould said: “The work with Sennen is a great example of how Ørsted collaborates with innovative companies in our UK and Ireland supply chain to the benefit of both organisations.
“By using Sennen’s technology on one of our live construction projects, we get a valuable, early opportunity to further improve our construction activities – reducing cost and risk.
“We’ll continue to work with Sennen on development of its product and help secure its route to market, both in the UK and Ireland and across our global portfolio, building on previous support from the Offshore Wind Growth Partnership.”
The London Array, the 175-turbine wind farm 20km off the Kent coast, was the first project to deploy Sennen’s highly specialised offshore wind software, which offers a centralised system for all aspects of offshore operations.
At present much of work linked to building wind farms offshore is done manually, making the process unwieldy and inefficient.
Founded in 2017 and now employing 24 people, Sennen has also worked with RWE, EDF Renewables and leading renewable energy infrastructure and private equity investment manager Foresight Group, for which it developed a system to help it manage its portfolio of renewable energy and sustainable infrastructure investments.
South Fork picture credit: Ørsted
