Two new Blue Cluster projects have been approved

Offshore wind energy is a hot topic. This renewable energy source will play an important role in the energy transition and in the realisation of the Belgian climate ambitions. The federal government therefore aims to double the offshore wind energy capacity by 2030.

To achieve optimal returns from the offshore wind farms, it is important to find possibilities to reduce operation costs. Two project proposals responding to that need have been recently approved: the SMARAGD and OPAL projects.

The SMARAGD project aims to develop a new concept to guarantee the supply of goods to offshore wind farms by means of unmanned service vessels. These vessels need to ensure that the crew can devote maximum attention to maintenance works and loses as little time as possible because of unavailable parts. 

Various available technologies will be combined to elaborate a standard concept for the hull, green propulsion, modular cargo and automatic navigation. The resulting higher degree of autonomy will reduce the number of human interventions and related risks and costs.

Partners: GEOxyz (lead); e-BO Enterprises; MULTI.engineering; and ERPA Industrial Supplier

The OPAL project aims to increase the available working hours for maintenance by reducing the costs of non-performed or failed transfers of goods and crew and optimising the planning process. In addition, the partners also aim to increase the predictability by being less dependent on human expertise. 

The objective is to use determining environmental factors to predict the accessibility of offshore infrastructure and optimise the planning process based of these predictions for the cost-efficient performance of offshore maintenance activities. 

Partners: e-BO Enterprises (lead); dotOcean; MULTI.engineering; GEOxyz; UGent IDlabs; and UGent Waves