XOCEAN’s XO-450 USV conducts seabed surveys for Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Farm

January 29, 2020 | AUVSI News

Considered a first for the offshore wind sector, XOCEAN’s XO-450 USV recently conducted seabed surveys on seven of the turbines at the Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Farm, a joint venture between SSE Renewables and innogy. 

To validate data collection before the vessel departed the work locations, experts located in the United Kingdom monitored the data collected from shore in real-time throughout the survey. 

According to XOCEAN, the survey demonstrates the “highly flexible and collaborative nature” of this technology, which ultimately allows industry experts to have direct access to real time data, from any location.

“We are constantly looking for innovative ways in which we can operate our fleet of renewables assets,” says Jeremy Williamson, SSE Renewables Head of Operations.

“XOCEAN’s vessel will allow us to carry out our work in a more efficient, and most importantly for SSE Renewables and our partners innogy, in the safest way possible. We’re really interested to see how this sort of work can help improve our industry and look forward to working with XOCEAN in future.”

XOCEAN says that its USVs offer a number of benefits, including keeping operators safe as they remain onshore, efficiency with operations 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and environmental benefits with ultra-low emission. These benefits result in “significant economic savings,” the company adds.

“Our USV platform has demonstrated itself to be a safe, reliable and low carbon solution for the collection of ocean data,” says James Ives, CEO of XOCEAN.

“We are delighted to be working with SSE and innogy on this ground-breaking project.”