Ocean Infinity has completed a first-of-its-kind offshore wind farm survey for Ørsted and PGE in the Polish sector of the Baltic Sea, raising the bar for the future of marine surveying.
The project team, based in Ocean Infinity’s Operations Centre in Gothenburg, used a multi-beam echo sounder (MBES) and 3D multi-channel ultra-high resolution seismic (3D-UHRS) equipment deployed from an Ocean Infinity Armada lean-crewed vessel over 540 km to identify sub-surface boulders in support of the Baltica 2 project installation campaign for wind turbine generators (WTG) and offshore substation (OSS) locations.
“A conventional operation like this would require a much larger offshore team, significantly increasing operational risks and costs,” stated Sara Andersson, Project Manager at Ocean Infinity. “Moving operational control from the vessel to the office requires a completely new approach to operational management, coordination, and execution. The safe completion of this project with such a lean crew offshore yet again demonstrates our ability to deliver high-quality survey data using innovative technology.”
Key to the project’s success was the use of real-time remote data management. Ørsted and PGE operate on a 24-hour delivery schedule, necessitating data products to be produced within 24 hours of logging off. This can pose a challenge even on conventional vessels, where data is logged and processed on the same server. With Ocean Infinity’s sophisticated remote data collection system, however, the survey data was accessible to the office-based processing team within the same timeframe as an offshore team would expect, enabling us to meet Ørsted’s high expectations and deliver according to specification.
As one of the world’s largest offshore wind developers, Ørsted’s positive feedback and the success of the project pave the way for future innovative partnerships and advancements in the offshore wind sector.
Ocean Infinity in Brief
Ocean Infinity is a fast-moving marine technology company specializing in the development and deployment of robotics for large-scale, subsea data acquisition. Purpose-driven from day one, Ocean Infinity is developing a range of innovative technologies to transform operations at sea, enabling people and the planet to thrive.
Since its establishment in 2017, Ocean Infinity has pioneered the use of AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles), using fleets of robotic vehicles to play a vital part in some of the most ambitious offshore projects the industry has ever seen, including the search for missing airliner MH370 and the discovery of the missing Argentinian submarine, ARA San Juan.
Today, Ocean Infinity serves governments, energy organizations, and scientific institutions, which have included RWE, SSE, Ørsted, bp, Energinet, Shell, Australian government, Equinor, NOAA, BOEM, and Total.
The company’s ethos is that there are almost no offshore activities, whether they take place above or below the waves, that cannot be made significantly more efficient, greener, and safer thanks to robotics. It is taking its ambitions a big step further by creating a fleet of robotic ships. Ocean Infinity’s Armada fleet, currently in build, is set to be the largest fleet of remotely operable ships in the world, representing one of the most ambitious maritime innovations ever seen.
By the end of 2022, Ocean Infinity began to take delivery of its first 78m Armada ships and ran equipment test operations from the first of several planned Remote-Control Centers – key milestones on the company’s journey towards tech-enabled lean-crewed operations for a safer and greener maritime future.
Ocean Infinity employs more than 500 technology and data specialists worldwide, spread across Europe, Southeast Asia, North America, and Australasia.
The company’s strong decarbonization ethos flows through all aspects of its operations; its onshore facilities will be carbon neutral by the end of 2023, followed by the company’s operations at sea by 2027, and the rest of the business by 2040.
Source Ocean Infinity