Optimising offshore wind foundation designs with advanced software and cloud-based computing

Using advanced software and cloud-based computing to optimise offshore wind foundations is a smart way of cutting costs and accelerate the green transition.

ROSAP has been used for the design and documentation of more than 3400 individual foundation designs for wind turbines with 17 GW distributed on offshore wind farms around the world.

The global wind industry continues to break records for new investments and capacity, but high costs remain a major challenge to continuing the green transition.

As the fastest-growing part of the sector, the offshore wind industry still needs to find new ways to optimise the designs and the entire supply chain to reduce costs related to planning, fabrication, installation and operation. 

A complex software that facilitates the necessary transition to renewable energy

Ramboll’s design software ROSAP (Ramboll Offshore Structural Analysis Programs) provides indispensable tools for designing wind turbine foundations in compliance with the most recent standards and newest technologies. The software includes a complete package for advanced static and dynamic analyses of foundation structures, covering all phases from site assessment studies to design analysis and operational maintenance optimisation. 

Recently, Ramboll’s engineers have started using a cloud-based computing framework with up to 1000 simultaneous CPUs, significantly improving scalability and computational time by more than a factor of 10.

“Ramboll could supply a solution that was 20% cheaper than what the competitors had to offer and could deliver a better thought-out solution owning to its wide palette of competencies” says Zhang Yi, Project Manager, Chinese State Power Investment Cooperation.

An investment in saving money

ROSAP and cloud-based computing are an investment in saving money, says Søren Juel Petersen, Business Development Director at Ramboll:

“It takes a lot of capacity and number crunching, but we’ve found that we do get a lot out of it. This is an investment in saving money. So, the savings we provide are much bigger than our costs are”.

Ronnie Refstrup Pedersen, Senior Chief Consultant, adds:

“Offshore wind turbines and foundations will be strategically monitored in the future and Ramboll has the knowhow and numerical framework to utilise the measurement data by updating the ROSAP model to a True Digital Twin, which can be used to facilitate decisions on life-time extensions or inspections. This can be used to offer new real-time insights into the health of the structure and further optimise future structural designs”. 

Listen to Ramboll’s podcast with Søren and Ronnie to get a peek at how ROSAP and cloud-based computing work hand in hand to lower capital and operational costs of offshore wind turbines.

Ingenuity Talks: Slashing Offshore Wind Costs

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