Less time and fewer resources to design, build and operate wind energy power plants

As wind farms have increased in size and complexity, administration of planning and development, operation and maintenance (O&M) and logistics has become more challenging.

Process analysts, installation managers and maintenance planners often need to purse time-consuming manual tasks involving huge quantities of data in order to ensure safe, cost-effective and reliable operation.

Advanced simulation technology being used across industrial sectors to provide insights and optimise advice that can save huge cost sums for these companies.

The wind power sector is no exception, and is already reaping huge benefits in reduced costs and use of resources, as well as substantial savings, from implementing intelligent cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions when planning and optimising all life-cycle phases in their projects.

Cloud solutions from Shoreline Wind are the industry standard in this field. Created for this purpose by people with an industrial background, they are used globally across the whole value chain in the wind power sector.

Intelligent simulation technology for wind energy
Shoreline Wind was founded in October 2014 by Ole-Erik V Endrerud to commercialise his doctoral research on the use of agent-based simulation modelling to analyse operations and maintenance in the offshore wind industry.

Endrerud quickly realised that the sector had to take a leap from “good enough” silo-based processes to something integrated and intelligent which could integrate the various elements in wind power projects. But simply consolidating the information “islands” was not sufficient.

The solution had to be tailored specially for the way this industry functions, and to include intelligent simulation and optimisation technology in order to do far more than is possible with an adapted enterprise resource planning (ERP) system.

Simulates an endless number of wind project scenarios
Shoreline Wind’s cloud-based simulation algorithm uses agent-based modelling, which accurately predicts costs while maximising availability and resource utilisation. Created in close collaboration with market-leading developers, operators, equipment suppliers, consultants and vessel operators, the tool is applied by these users to assess and manage new projects as well as for maintenance management.

The simulation makes it possible to model accurately how operations are actually conducted, rather than relying solely on probability modelling. Users can simulate an endless number of construction or field service scenarios in minutes in order to produce quick and accurate business-case analyses and to optimise resources and work. These scenarios cover all foundation types for bottom fixed, onshore and floating windfarms with capabilities for traditional shuttling-based installation and simple nearshore CTV supported O&M operations, as well as complex feeder-based installation, parallel operations, near shore transportation, shared resource utilization across clusters, batch runs, and much more is covered in the software application. 

Solves problems in the same platform
An analyst traditionally depends on a range of models to generate different data outcomes for a project. These normally yield independent estimates of such variable data as weather downtime, monthly availability, and resource accessibility.

To create realistic forecasts, project analysts turn to Shoreline Wind’s agent-based modelling software to configure and model a large number of scenarios and capture the effect of dependencies, weather and other restrictions.

Planners can, for example, visualise the impact of manufacturing tempos or installation bottlenecks, or identify when fewer technicians should be allocated to a service campaign if the resources can be shared with other wind farms in the area.

The software has become the industry standard for wind energy sector

Both Shoreline Wind’s Design™ and  Execution™ products are uniquely positioned to grow in line with the global shift towards green energy production, and are constantly being developed to meet the industry’s rapid development.

That includes the massive expansion in turbine size, new installation methods, an increasingly global value chain and the move towards floating wind farms.

The company’s cloud solution has already become an industry standard, with a customer portfolio including Siemens Gamesa, Ocean Winds, Ørsted, Equinor, Vestas, Shell and GE. All these and more have expanded their use of the software to achieve substantial savings in development, operation, and maintenance costs and to increase production uptime.

And the journey is not stopping there. Future applications include green hydrogen, Power to X, solar energy, hydropower and other new forms of green renewable energy.

Shoreline Wind envisages a world where far less time and fewer resources are required to design, construct and operate sustainable power plants – with software which enables the transition to a future driven by clean renewable energy.