Health, safety and reliability in an expanding industry: offshore wind energy

David Nicholls, AREVA RISK MANAGEMENT CONSULTING LTD

SaRS Seminar: Big Projects, Big Problems? 16 June 2016

Wind energy capacity

Source: RenewableUK State of the Industry report, 2015

“Offshore wind is set to provide 10%

of the UK’s electricity needs by 2020.

Offshore wind already delivers 5%”

RenewableUK, 2016

Slide 2

Renewable contribution

Source: DECC Energy Trends, March 2016

Statistics

Slide 3

Size – arms race

180 m rotor diameter

~ 8 MW

Slide 4

Stakeholders

Supply chain

Contractors Manufacturers

DECC

HSE

Customers

CAA MCA

IMO EASA

RenewableUK

Crown Estate ICAO

GWO

EWEA

G9

Planning

authorities

Neighbours

Developers

Consumers

Public

Other aviation

and marine

users

Slide 5

Planning

Health and safety legislation

Maritime

Aviation

Product safety Workplace and

Construction

• Not a safety case regime

• Unlikely to impact public

Slide 6

Accident statistics (2014)

994 reported incidents, 0 fatalities, 6 RIDDOR injuries

44 lost work days

Total recordable injury rate: 6.2 per million hours

Lost time injury frequency: 1.8 per million hours

Work processes?

24% in marine operations

14% in lifting operations

13% in operating plant and machinery

Where?

38% on/around turbines

33% onshore

26% on vessels

Source: G9 Offshore wind health and safety association - 2014 incident data report

Slide 7

What are the hazards? Manufacture / onshore

Slide 8

What are the hazards? Construction

Slide 9

What are the hazards? Operation and maintenance

Slide 10

A few distinctive issues

Unexploded ordnance

Helicopters

Confined spaces

Vessel-turbine transfers

Ladder climbing - health effects

Medical fitness

Work under suspended loads

Electromagnetic fields(?)

Slide 11

Reliability

Planned and unplanned maintenance

For the latter:

electrical components are the leading cause of downtime

gearboxes and generators fail rarely, but account for longest outages and

significant hazards in replacement (CDM)

high failure rates in first few years

Measures:

redundancy

onshore test bench

remote monitoring / correction

Slide 12

Overarching factors affecting the risk profile, mainly in O&M phase

Rapid growth

training &competence

Remote working

minor fire, illness or injury → major crisis, emergency response?

Distributed, international workforce, many contractors

consultation? communication? culture?

Commercial and political pressure

cost reduction, deadlines

New technology

limited operational experience or failure data

Slide 13

Managing the risks?

Rapid growth

harmonising training

Remote working

improve reliability, telemedecine

Distributed, international workforce, contractors

industry co-operation

Commercial and political pressure

industry co-operation

New technology

sharing data and lessons learned, harmonising standards &guidance

Improved reliability

eliminates many

risks at source

Slide 14

Areas for improvement

Eliminate /reduce risk at design stage

Manage risk across the lifecycle, clarifying responsibilities

Improve collaboration / reduce duplication between duty

holders, regulators, trade bodies

Engage workforce (most valuable resource)

Engage / consult unrepresented parties

Reduce unnecessary bureaucracy

Slide 15

Questions?

Slide 16