Dutch company Next Ocean is looking at a global reach for its technology that predicts waves and vessel motions minutes beforehand. Following a period of demonstration deployments of WavePredictor and the first vessels using it commercially, Next Ocean says it is witnessing the technology becoming standard equipment onboard vessels working in offshore wind and other offshore energy industries.
“As we check in with our clients using WavePredictor after a while to get feedback, we realised we were asking numerous and detailed questions while they just simply saw it as part of their essential, standard equipment – and this is the best feedback we could have hoped to receive”, Karel Roozen, CEO of Next Ocean, said in an interview with offshoreWIND.biz.
Last year, the company revealed that its WavePredictor was commissioned on board a Boskalis multipurpose vessel specialised in subsea cable burial. The technology was also installed on several North Star service operations vessels (SOV), including the SOVs operating at the Dogger Bank Wind Farm in the UK, the world’s largest offshore wind farm under construction.
The wave prediction solution was also integrated onboard Pioneering Spirit , owned and operated by Allseas and said to be one of the biggest construction vessels in the world. Allseas has now also added Next Ocean’s technology to its pipelay vessel Solitaire which is embarking on an upgrade.
“Most of our current clients are based in Europe and some of their vessels are operating worldwide. Seeing how our technology helps crews sail safely, especially in harsh and unpredictable conditions, we want to broaden the reach of WavePredictor and help way more people”, said Roozen.
With Arches Capital recently investing and taking a stake in Next Ocean, the Dutch technology developer is ramping up work on the WavePredictor product reaching a broader, global fleet of vessels.
“We are currently discussing projects in the US and Australia and we hope to expand even further across the market”, said Roozen.
Roozen also noted that while there is research and development underway on similar solutions, WavePredictor is the most advanced technology in this field, in use onboard a multitude of vessels for several years already.
“We often get comments from crews using WavePredictor that they are not operating in the dark anymore. Rather than picking a moment at random, the WavePredictor shows what is the best timing for critical steps in the operation. This is what our technology provides – offshore energy vessel crews no longer have to operate blind”, Next Ocean’s CEO highlighted.
The way WavePredictor works is by allowing ship crews to make decisions – such as when to splash the ROV, land a BOP on the conductor or a gangway on the transition piece – minutes beforehand as the technology anticipates waves and predicts vessel motions.
This not only ensures the safety of crews and vessels but also helps save time and money, according to Roozen.
“Our technology allows crews to plan for the most critical operations to be performed during quiet periods when there are no exceptional large waves to be expected. While there are a lot of technologies that help work as close as possible to the conventional statistical limits, we have a new way of looking at operational limits and allowing to work in a safe manner up to 20 per cent above these conventional statistical limits”, Karel Roozen explained.
“We have done calculations of the time saved and, for example, for an SOV in the North Sea, the additional saved time on a yearly basis can be as much as 8 per cent. That is almost a month of extra workable days.”