Germany: VENTUSmarine Site Surveillance obtains BSH approval

Exactly three years after the first marine coordination center with a German team of nautical watchkeeping officers (OCC Meerwind) was launched by WindMW GmbH and EMS Maritime Offshore GmbH (EMO) in August 2012, the two companies are about to set an industry standard once again:

On 1st September 2015 EMO’s own independently operating maritime control room „VENTUSmarine“ has officially taken over the site surveillance for the „Meerwind“ site from the guard vessel „Osprey“ (which is operated by EMO as well), in accordance with the BMVI-guideline on wind farm site surveillance.

During the past two months, RWE’s “Nordsee Ost” and E.ON’s “Amrumbank” windfarm joined this shared solution in the HelWin Cluster, by contracting EMO as well.

A few weeks earlier WindMW and EMO had jointly presented their site surveillance concept for the O+M phase to German BSH and WSV and have obtained approval and appreciation for their innovative solution and thorough preparation. EMO offers site surveillance to a pool of windfarms in the German EEZ. All watchkeeping coordinators are STCW mariners with a nautical license and a GOC radio license which grants a standard far above the guidelines‘ minimum requirements. Thus EMO is not obliged to provide any further proof of qualification for „trained nautical personnel“.

Sabine Fox, Senior Manager Coordination Services at EMO, explains: „Collision prevention skills are a central part of a mariner‘s education. It takes months of practice to work with electronic sea charts and to properly assess a drift scenario. We can not imagine how to train an electrical production engineer all aspects of marine site surveillance in a few days course“.

“EMO has proven that site surveillance by experienced marine professionals does not need to be expensive and the HelWin-Cooperation is the first German Cluster to demonstrate a higher-than-average safety-awareness by choosing this service!” adds Stefan Klett, General Manager and Head of O+M at WindMW GmbH.