How a wind farm developer relied on Spinergie to anticipate and limit project execution delays

Context

Spinergie’s client, a wind farm developer, needed to determine when its contracted vessel would complete its prior wind farm installation scope, to ensure it would be available on time for its next assignment. The developer relied on Spinergie’s data to decide whether to book a replacement vessel or not. 

The solution has also been used by ship owners with vessel availability to proactively identify spot work opportunities. 

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Challenge 

The wind farm developer previously relied solely on the vessel manager for progress reports on the vessel’s ongoing installation scope at a wind farm owned by another developer. With concerns over the timing of that ongoing programme, and how it may affect their own upcoming project, the developer required additional data and analysis.

Using Spinergie’s market intelligence solution, the developer received an independent data set that provided a third-party view of the situation. Spinergie’s data-first approach provided an unbiased estimate of when operations would end at the ongoing programme. This empowered the developer to challenge the vessel manager’s estimates and take mitigation decisions to alleviate the impact of those delays on their own project. 

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Spinergie's market intelligence solution 

Spinergie provides the following tools which assist in tracking, analysing and forecasting construction activities at a wind farm project:

1. Wind farm Fact Sheets display a number of dashboards that can help in forecasting construction activity including an installation performance S-curve chart.  
2. Customisable Alerts can be set up based on specific events occurring within the parameter of contracted/expected installation time. 
3. Wind Performance consists of a series of dashboards that track installation, operations and maintenance activities at a wind farm project. 

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Fact Sheets

Our Fact Sheets allow customers to track and analyse activity at the specified wind farm project. Clients can view an ‘Installation S-Curve’ chart within the wind farm fact sheet for foundations and WTGs. 

The ‘Installation S-Curve’ chart incorporates a number of elements that provide an overview of installation progress across days, weeks and months via completion percentage or the number of turbines installed. In order to provide this detail, Spinergie analysts use a specific methodology to pull together these elements along with an estimate of weather downtime. 

1. The time spent at each turbine is tracked by milestones e.g. the time spent installing the foundation and then the time spent installing the turbine. 
2. A complete analysis of vessel time is undertaken including time spent in transit or ashore. 
3. These two aspects are then combined to show the overall progress made at the installation scope.
4. The final element of the chart is the calculation of two scenarios which forecast the end date of the installation. The first scenario provides an estimate based on the potential for delays while the other provides a best-case estimate with no delays. 

Alerts

Alerts can be created within the solution for a number of different scenarios. It is possible to request alerts for when prolonged foundation/turbine installation is expected at a project. This can be customised to track specific vessels with a set number of days. Should the programme run over the specified number of days highlighted as an alert, the client receives an email notification and can take appropriate action. 

Further criteria can be selected when setting up alerts including new activity detections, transit periods and new awards. 

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Wind Performance 

Wind Performance is a collection of comprehensive dashboards detailing the performance of wind farm installation vessels. They include Installation Performance, JU maintenance Performance and Operations Performance. 

Each of these dashboards provides a detailed analysis of vessel performance at previous projects. It is possible to view granular data into each vessel as well as overviews of activity in regions, countries or specific wind farms.

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Result

For the wind farm developer, it was imperative to track the vessel's progress ahead of its next assignment. Spinergie’s data and alerts gave them unbiased project progress estimates on which they relied to decide on a course of action. This could either be returning to the market to recontract the work scope or continuing as planned. 

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Contact Spinergie today to request a demo of our innovative market intelligence solutions and discover how our tracking and analysis tools can help you ensure you have all the information you need to make informed decisions for your project.

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