Digital offshore wind

As our reliance on renewable energy grows, it’s vital to ensure our offshore wind farms are performing as intended. Arup has developed a suite of digital services that optimise windfarm design and operation.

An equitable approach to effective wind farm site selection

For offshore wind to play a pivotal role in reaching net zero, communities, offshore wind developers, environmental groups, marine spatial planners and policymakers must balance multiple factors that shape spatial planning and site selection.  

SCALE helps government bodies and developers to identify the most favourable sites to locate offshore wind farms, balancing performance, lifetime costs and other environmental and marine economic activities. The tool has been used to help the UK government and seabed leasing authorities to understand the complex factors that will influence decisions around future offshore wind development out to 2050. Learn more about SCALE in the video below (from 15 seconds).

Optimising maintenance of offshore wind farm foundations

Foundations are the only major component of offshore wind farms that cannot be replaced. It’s the foundation that determines the lifespan, through-life cost projections and viability of entire wind farms. Arup has developed an innovative monitoring system and cloud-based platform to enable in-service foundation life to be assessed by our clients in-house.

LEAP (Life Extension and Asset Management Platform) assesses foundation integrity and guides decision making. By monitoring the structural health of the foundation, the platform enables wind farm operators like London Array to assess the lifespan of in-service foundations in-house, and inform decisions on operations and maintenance. Learn more about LEAP in the video below (from 0:52).