Abstract
The offshore wind energy industry is focused on reducing the total cost of energy. Industrialized production and standardization are considered increasingly important elements in this pursuit. The intention of this paper is therefore to illustrate how this challenge, which is faced across the industry, can be dealt with in cooperation. The key words within the industry right now are doing it better, doing it smarter and doing it together. One way is to create new standards and guidelines within the industry, while other projects attempt to avoid previous times’ mistakes through participation and elaboration on observations, by improving guidelines etc. Common for many of the attempts is that they are often carried out by more than one partner and often in the form of Joint Industry Projects (JIPs).
Some of the projects dealt with over the past years, by the authors, have been corrosion protection of monopiles, manufacturing of industrialized jackets, work on more accurate cathodic protection guidelines and standardization and verification of new design curves for welded substructures. Some of these elements account for a large share of the investment and maintenance costs as regards offshore wind energy. The hope is that, ultimately, an as accurate data basis as possible combined with experience and knowledge will lead to more standardized structures and hence reduction of cost. But to be more successful, more cooperation is needed.
