EMS Maritime Offshore (EMO) and WindMW have obtained approval for the site surveillance concept, VENTUSmarine, from the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency of Germany (BSH) and the Waterways and Shipping Board (WSV).
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.’
”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,” Sabine Fox, Senior Manager Coordination Services at EMO, said.
Back in September EMO’s own independently operating maritime control room VENTUSmarine officially took over the site surveillance for the Meerwind site from the guard vessel Osprey 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.
“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,” said Stefan Klett, General Manager and Head of O+M at WindMW GmbH.
VENTUSmarine is also part of WINDEAcare group, a holistic acute and emergency medical care concept for offshore wind farms.