On 18 November 2004 the Energy and Maritime Boards of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) launched, in conjunction with the Offshore Engineering Society (a kindred body of the ICE), an e-mail forum to discuss the development of offshore wind farms.
Interest in the development of offshore wind energy has been growing steadily over recent years and today any meeting on the subject is guaranteed to be well attended. With the Government setting a target of 10% renewable energy generation by 2010, and 15% by 2015, the UK offshore wind industry is at a critical stage in its development to meet these huge challenges. Two licensing rounds totalling 8.5 GW, equivalent to 8% of total UK electricity supply, have been proposed for development around the UK coast. To date, 64 MW of offshore wind power have been commissioned at Blyth and North Hoyle, a 60 MW project at Scroby Sands is currently being commissioned, and construction work has started on a further 90 MW at Kentish Flats and is due for completion next year.
In July 2004 the ICE's Maritime and Energy Boards agreed that the time was right to take stock of the industry's experiences, in the UK and overseas, gained in the planning, design, construction, installation and operation of these developments, with a view to identifying improvements to the development processes and addressing the key technical challenges.
Having decided that a debate was timely, the options for the way in which the debate could be managed were examined. Meetings and conferences were considered as an option but an e-mail forum, as already run by the ICE on a number of topics, was considered the best approach, largely because it is the best means of gaining input from the greatest number of professionals and, since it could operate over several months, would allow a significantly greater and more considered input. Once this route was identified, a fiveman steering committee composed of David Kerr (Sir Robert McAlpine), Captain Michael Frampton (London Offshore Consultants), Nick Hill (CBI John Brown), Mark Richards (Seacore) and Peter Fish (SLP) was established to oversee the debate. This steering committee established the objective of the forum, namely ‘to gather the experiences of offshore wind energy developments to identify constraints and ideas for the future’.
The forum was initially planned to run from November 2004 to May 2005. However, the steering committee now feels that this will need to be extended if all the important topics are to be addressed fully. The forum is open to all professionals involved in the development of offshore wind energy. Registration for the forum is free and may be done automatically through a dedicated web page on the Offshore Engineering Society website <http://www.oes.org.uk> or by contacting Kathryn Hyde-Bales (tel.: +44 (0)20 7665 2235; fax: +44 (0)20 7799 1325). Whilst it is preferred that contributors identify any affiliation they have, it is possible for contributions to be made anonymously through the forum's secretary.
The steering committee have decided that the forum will be divided into a number of topics and that the introduction of these topics will be staggered through the life of the forum and may be overlapped. The topics identified (in no specific order) are:
the consents process
energy issues
construction
operations
environmental issues
economics and finance.
Within each topic it is anticipated that a variety of discussion strings will develop. The steering committee will announce the opening of each topic and also, when they consider it appropriate, the closure of a topic or discussion string within a topic. The forum will also gather references to existing documents and websites, which will be collated and made available to all members of the forum. All members joining the forum will have access to an archive of contributions. Forum members joining late will be expected to scan the archive before contributing to the discussion to avoid duplication. It is envisaged that wherever possible contributors will provide evidence and document scientific principles and references to support arguments.
It is proposed that at the end of the conference the contributions will be gathered into a report that summarises all the relevant issues and the various perspectives of forum contributors in an unbiased and concise manner. It is proposed that the report will also list the contributors to the forum (where they agree to this) in order to demonstrate the breadth of interests of the contributors and the size of the forum. It is intended that the report will form a useful contribution to the ICE's knowledge base. It is planned that this report will be presented and discussed at a closing meeting for the forum and that this meeting may identify specific recommendations in the current or proposed processes and commercial environment for the development of offshore wind farms.
To date over 133 professionals have joined the forum. The initial start up was slow but by 2005 the rate at which contributions were being submitted had increased and several interesting discussion threads had developed.
