German utility RWE has decided to establish an initial 30-person dedicated fleet servicing team for the UK and Germany to support its growing international offshore wind fleet.
Initially focused on five operational projects off the UK and German coasts, the team will secure new, long-term jobs, and have the potential to grow further in line with the company’s ambition to triple its global offshore wind capacity from 3.3GW today to 10GW by 2030.
In this regard, RWE signed a three-year agreement with Global Wind Services to provide a team of team leads and technicians in the two countries. The fleet services team will work collaboratively with RWE’s existing operations and maintenance teams to ensure turbine services are carried out efficiently and to the highest standard.
The German firm also signed an 18-month contract with Rem Offshore/Rem Purus to provide the service operation vessel Rem Wind to support offshore wind’s fleet servicing. The Rem Wind is the sister vessel of Rem Power that will support RWE at Sofia Wind – the largest offshore wind project in RWE’s current portfolio.
The team will operate 24/7 and remain on board the service operation vessel for 14 days at a time. As a result, RWE will be able to provide up to 500 services each year such as ensuring the efficient operation, maintenance, and repair of the wind turbines.
RWE is developing nine offshore wind projects in the UK, representing a combined potential installed capacity of around 9.8GW. The company is also developing the Nordseecluster, which is located in the German North Sea around 50 kilometres north of the island of Juist. The cluster consists of four wind farm sites with a total capacity of 1.6GW.
