How do you install XXL offshore wind turbines more efficiently? Master’s student Job Schepers is working on a solution.
“As wind turbines are increasing in height and size, the power output increases, which causes the price of wind energy to get lower and lower.” (Photo: Job Schepers)
“I grew up in Breda and during high school, I developed a strong interest for small mechanical projects. My interest in this field grew over the years as I started fixing up multiple scooters. Hence, I decided to study Mechanical Engineering at TU Delft. After that, I did some courses in Applied Mathematics but for my master’s I decided on Systems and Control. This turned out to be an excellent choice, as I really enjoyed the curriculum that Systems and Control offers.
At the moment, the demand for wind energy is growing and so is the size of the monopiles and wind turbines. One of the main problems is that future wind parks will be located further from shore and will therefore be located at increasingly deeper depths. Current installation methods will not be able to keep up with this trend. During current operations, the entire vessel designed to install monopiles is lifted from the sea level by four ‘legs’ which are lowered to the seabed. The vessel is raised out of the water once the legs have sufficient bearing capacity. Therefore, the vessel evolves from simply a ship, to a stable working platform for the installation process. At great depths, this method is very inefficient. Therefore, the offshore wind industry is looking for new innovative methods for installing wind turbines, which I think are looking very promising.
Dynamic positioned floating vessel
As one of these innovative players, Heerema Engineering Solutions is looking into new possibilities and one of these would be the use of a dynamic positioned floating vessel. The dynamic positioned vessel needs a motion compensated gripper frame to mitigate the motions of the vessel and the monopile. For my master’s thesis project, I’m doing research for Heerema, working on advancing the control strategy for such a gripper frame. As part of the team, I’m responsible for looking into a new and innovative control strategy for the problem. My professor from Systems and Control offers valuable insights and assists me in designing the control strategy.
One of the major challenges is that at every different installation step, the system parameters change. On top of that, these changing parameters cannot be accurately measured. This and the changing dynamics during the various installation steps result in an interesting and relevant research and development project in the area of Systems and Control. The unknown and changing system parameters require an adaptive controller. There are multiple solutions to problems like this, but due to the expected large variations of parameters which we cannot measure, we need to design a controller that is able to deal with a wide range of situations.
As wind turbines are increasing in height and size, the power output increases, which causes the price of wind energy to get lower and lower. Therefore, the wind industry must keep moving forward in order to further reduce costs and, of course, to enhance the speed of the energy transition. We believe that the new method of using a dynamic positioned vessel and a motion compensated gripper frame is going to allow for a cost-effective installation in deeper water conditions, as well as making the operation more efficient.
I’m about halfway through my thesis and I am planning on graduating in June. What’s next? I don’t know yet, let’s see what the future brings.”
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Heather Montague / Freelance writer
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