Foundation Monitoring Offshore Wind Farm Wikinger

IBERDROLA operates the Wikinger offshore wind farm (OWF) in the German sector of the Baltic Sea, approximately 34 km northeast of the island of Rügen. Within the wind farm, 70 ADWEN 5MW turbines are installed in two clusters on 4-legged jacket foundations. In addition, there is a transformer station located within the wind farm.

The wind farm is located in the German exclusive economic zone and as such requires approval by the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH). The two main concerns of the customer are the monitoring of the real bearing loads and the fatigue loading.

Both the wind turbines and the substation are monitored by structural monitoring from Wölfel.

The monitoring system developed by Wölfel operates reliably and independently over a long period of time even without on-site maintenance capability as there is sufficient redundancy of sensor hardware, software and data storage.

The monitoring system provides online and real-time information on the status of the structure and provides data for lifetime and condition forecasting that is used for decision making.

We provide periodic reports explaining the results such as: Structure condition, consumed lifetime, load cycle count, and any changes in boundary conditions (i.e. soil-structure interaction) as a basis for asset management decision making.

The structural models implemented by Wölfel in the data analysis are able to narrow down the sources of damage, locate damaged areas, and provide useful information to identify the causes affecting structural integrity so that appropriate interventions can be planned (e.g., problems related to grout connections or scour).