As offshore wind farms increase in number and move further offshore, the demand for skilled technicians has become higher, creating a recruitment gap.
The Remote Supervisory Systems project is aimed at investigating how skilled technicians in onshore locations could provide remote supervision to other technicians working on offshore wind turbines. This approach creates an efficient system where skilled technicians can supervise work offshore more efficiently, cutting out travel time to and from wind farms and freeing up their time to focus solely on work.
However, in order to achieve remote supervision, there is need for hi-fidelity and reliable communications system. This project is aimed at identifying the communications systems required to achieve remote supervision and then demonstrating the systems, or their composite technologies, at the 7MW Levenmouth Demonstration Turbine in Fife.
Minimising the costs, health and safety risks and turbine downtime associated with offshore wind O&M is a major industry priority. Remote supervision has been identified as one of the key innovations that can reduce risk and cut costs by allowing technicians to communicate in real-time with supervisors or equipment providers on land. These technologies exist in other industries, but need to be demonstrated in an offshore wind environment before being rolled out commercially.
Our Innovation Challenge page has more details on how to get involved: click below for more details and to submit your application.
