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Offshore Wind: A Comprehensive Guide to Successful Offshore Wind Farm Installation
Summary
Offshore Wind is the first-ever roadmap to successful offshore wind installation. It provides a ready reference for wind project managers, teaching them how to deal with complications on-site, as well as for financers, who can utilize the text as an easy guide to asking the pivotal questions of petitioning wind project developers. These developers' planning stages will be improved by the book's expert advice on how to avoid wasting money by scoping out and mitigating potential problems up-front. Wind turbine manufacturers will benefit from insights into design optimization to support cheaper installation and hauling, thereby incurring lower project costs, and helping developers establish a quicker route to profitability. The book sheds light not just on how to solve a particular installation difficulty, but delves into why the problem may best be solved in that way. Enables all stakeholders to realize cheaper, faster, and safer offshore wind projects Explains the different approaches to executing on- and offshore projects, highlighting the economic impacts of the various financial and operational choices Provides practical, proven advice on how tough challenges can be overcome, using real-life examples from the author’s experiences to illustrate key issues
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Reviews
On page 32, the author quotes from the A-Team's leader, John "Hannibal" Smith: "I love it when a plan comes together!" Well, I love it when a book comes together! Based on the words in its title, and the classification by the publishers as an "Energy/Engineering" book, I was expecting a dry engineering tome examining hardware, software, financial spreadsheets, etc. Instead, Kurt E. Thomsen writes cogently and clearly about almost all relevant issues regarding the planning, creation, and implementation of an offshore wind farm.In the preface, Mr. Thomsen sets the table by declaring, "This book is the result of 10 years of learning by doing." If there is to be a classic work on off shore wind farm installation, I would back this monograph for that designation. By the time Mr. Thomsen quotes Hannibal Smith, I've already learned the difference between monopile and jacket foundations. The brief seven page opening chapter begins with a clear and concise overview of "What is an offshore wind farm?" and segues immediately into the issues of getting permits. This second chapter is probably the book's weakest, but the author recognizes that this is probably the most dynamically problematic area for planning and implementing these projects.This is a self-described "holistic" work that when it doesn't cover something thoroughly, as in getting permits, it nonetheless stakes out the relevant issues very clearly. Similarly when it covers more specific engineering concerns (monopile vs. jacket foundations) he recognizes that the technology may change, but still describes the over arching problem: regardless of future changes in technologies, one still has to take in to consideration the physical issues and costs for putting a foundation on the ocean floor.A good example of this approach is Chapter 15, "Transporting wind turbines." In an extensive and well organized discussion of which type of ship to consider for transport, Mr. Thomsen supplies sample cost spreadsheets for a given vessel, an extensive "Vessel Assessment Sheet" for organizing project parameters, and coverage of the actual process of ship operations and bookings. The specific ships, parameters, costs, etc. will change over time, but the steps needed and the questions to ask will not. What can ship X transport? Where can it go? How much does it cost? How long does it take to go from point A to point B?I suspect no review of reasonable length can express the breadth of information the author shares on this subject. This is a book by THE expert. Overall, the book is surprisingly accessible to a lay reader, with the required mathematical background being basic arithmetic. In that sense, this may not be a sufficient book for the front-line engineer involved in such a project. Said engineer can still benefit from understanding the broader context of their efforts in the entire project. Any stakeholder in a potential off shore wind farm project (e.g., interested citizen; county board member; potential investor; project manager; engineer) will benefit from reading this work.An easy five out of five stars. Ignoring the specific subject matter, this is a very well written, and edited, book. NOTE: I received this book for free for reviewing as part of the Amazon.com Vine Program. This review is also posted there.