Not only chocolates and beers, but also our expertise and experience in offshore wind energy has now become a Belgian export product of worldwide fame. This will be demonstrated once again at the International Offshore Wind Partnering Forum (IPF), North America's leading conference on offshore wind energy, which will take place from 26 to 28 April. Sirris, as coordinator of OWI-Lab, is proud to be giving a keynote speech at this industry meeting.
The IPF is organised by the Business Network for Offshore Wind in Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA, and intends to connect global supply chain leaders and companies by providing unique networking opportunities and offering the latest and most relevant industry updates, from technology and policy to safety and siting. The conference will be attended by about 1,500 visitors from all over the world, 154 speakers and a trade fair with 137 international exhibitors.
Presence of OWI-Lab
Because wind energy is expanding so quickly, these events are also becoming more relevant. The Belgian presence is therefore significant. On 27 April (13:15-14:15 local time) Sirris, as coordinator of OWI-Lab, will give a keynote presentation on the experience of 12 years of R&D campaigns and innovation projects in offshore wind, together with Belgian companies 24SEA, Marlinks and Jan De Nul, and in cooperation with the Blue Cluster. The presentation will be on ‘Cost Reduction and Lifetime Extension for Foundations and Cables’, covering topics such as the importance of a thorough understanding of geotechnical parameters and digitalisation (through monitoring) to reduce CAPEX and OPEX costs associated with foundations and cables. We also share lessons learned from more than a decade of research in structural health monitoring (SHM) of different offshore structures, the connection types and ongoing studies set up through the Blue Cluster such as the Boptic and Soiltwin projects.
Finally, Sirris's entry for the poster presentation was also approved: our poster on test infrastructure of the large climate chamber (link) and its use for testing extreme weather events on wind turbine machine parts will be presented on 27 April (16:30-17:30 local time).
