Vattenfall on HSE Challenges for the Offshore Wind Industry

IQPCs Wind Series in 2014 will be completed by the 4th International Conference Offshore Wind HSE in
December in Bremen, and we are looking forward to discussing effective health and safety concepts, risk
management and tool assessment with our experts on-site. Before the event, we had the chance to talk to
our expert speaker Enrico Jakobi, HSE Manager Offshore Wind at Vattenfall Europe Windkraft GmbH. Read
the full interview here!
IQPC: The offshore wind industry is quite young,
with lots of room for improvement regarding
processes and HSE standards. Judging from
your perspective, which are the most pressing
challenges right now?
Enrico Jakobi: If you consider the G9 incident data
from 2013 you can see that vessel operations and
lifting activities are the main causes of incidents. At
the DanTysk site we had in total nearly 570 heavy
lifts offshore and in peak times up to 30 vessels in
the field. This leads to two different challenges. On
the one hand you have lifting operations which are
quite well regulated and standardised but here the
implementation has to improve. On the other hand
you have vessel operations, which particularly for
smaller vessels are poorly regulated.
IQPC: We can learn a lot from the oil & gas industry
which has long experience with installation and
operation of offshore platforms, but which are
the specific HSE challenges for offshore wind
parks?
Enrico Jakobi: The wide spread of the installations in
offshore wind parks in terms of number of installations
and distance between them. If you look at oil & gas
the number of installations is rather limited. Looking
at DanTysk for example, we have 80 turbines, 1

Substation and 1 Accommodation platform. This

confronts you with different challenges: transfer,
communication, first aid provision, means of rescue/
escape, etc...
Therefore I am rather cautious to compare offshore
wind with offshore oil & gas.
IQPC: With regard to growing sizes of offshore
projects and the cooperation with contractors
and subcontractors HSE management becomes
quite challenging. Which are the most crucial
factors for implementing an H&S culture?
Enrico Jakobi: This really is a challenge. For me,
implementing a profound HSE culture is a three step
program.
First you need to set the dot on the horizon where
you want to go and how you want to achieve this
goal.
Secondly you need to set minimum requirements
that everybody must adhere to, no matter what!
Finally you need to cooperate with the contractors. I
like to see a contractual relationship similar to a real
life relationship. You have ups and downs but at the
end of the day working together will create a positive

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output. You need to learn your lessons and improve

with experience from former activities.
One last sentence: Vattenfall does not distinguish
between Contractors and Subcontractors. Everybody
has to play by the same rules.
IQPC: To which extend does HSE influence the
contractor selection?
Enrico Jakobi: At Vattenfall we have a clear guideline
on Contractor selection with minimum requirements
in terms of HSE performance which a Tenderer needs
to fulfil to be selected. If a contractor does not fulfil
the minimum requirements, he is out. Full stop! These
are for example a max. LTIF rate. On the other side
we do have requirements which by non-compliance
will not end in a non-selection of a Contractor but
needs to improve during the project in cooperation
between us and the Contractor.
IQPC: How do you get aligned with different
requirements of wind farm owners, authorities
and industry standards?
Enrico Jakobi: In Germany we have a saying: We
dance at every wedding. As the offshore wind
industry is still young and standards / guidelines
are being introduced from several stakeholders, you
need to be part of all the working groups to stay on
top of the development. Luckily at Vattenfall we are a
very good HSE team with a broad scope of expertise,
which means that we can share the work between
us.
IQPC: Thank you for your time!

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