Carbon Trust has announced the winners of its latest innovation competition to find novel methods to inspect offshore wind substructures. The competition, launched as part of the Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator programme, targeted companies with new or adaptable techniques for inspection of offshore wind foundations.
Entries were sought to address four specific challenges: weld inspection for monopile foundations; weld inspection for jacket foundations; grout inspection for monopile foundations and grout inspection for jacket foundations. The challenge winners were:
- Weld inspection for monopile foundations - Oceaneering International Services Limited with the development of an inspection tool adapted from previous use in oil and gas.
- Weld inspection for jacket foundations (2 winners) - Oceaneering utilising its experience in oil and gas to provide an innovative technique for inspection of nodes, and Kraken Robotics, a German company, having developed a high resolution laser imaging sensor for inspection of subsea assets.
- Grout inspection for jacket foundations - Next Geosolutions UKCS in collaboration with Ashtead Technology and Hydrason with a technique based on the use of innovative sonar to detect gaps, cracks and disbanding of grout.
- Grout inspection for monopile foundations (2 winners) - Uniper Technologies has developed its ultrasonic interferometric technique jointly with the British Geological Survey and has shown its success in recent offshore trials already and Next Geosolutions UKCS with the same technology as for the jacket inspection.
The winners will initially receive a range of tailored support from the Carbon Trust, the OWA partners and technical contractors INNOSEA and Everoze. This will include marketing advice through to engineering and industry-specific support. Following this phase those techniques which show significant potential will then be tested at operational offshore wind farms to prove their ability in real life conditions.