Optimised monopile design by C2Wind

Dear all, 

As the autumn weather settles in over Europe, we hope that this short letter finds you well, amongst year 2020's eventful collection of challenges. Despite these circumstances, and thanks to all your and your colleagues greatness, much of the ever-exciting and resourceful offshore wind market has remained unchanged, which is great. We look forward to continuing doing our bit in 2021, and wanted to share with you some of great news which we are very proud of:

[...] the C2MONDE design brief package is evaluated to fulfil the requirements as given in the standard “Support structures for wind turbines” DNVGL-ST-0126:2018-07

That, is the key message from DNV-GL's Verification Letter which we received two weeks ago.

DNV-GL, after having carefully checked both design methods as well as the design engine and its results, have now verified that our very-own and beloved monopile design tool (C2Wind MONnopile DEsign, C2MONDE) lives up to the necessary, design standard requirements.

And, this of course good news. This final verification step tops up a range of successful projects with C2MONDE the past couple of years. A large number of projects have already benefited from C2Wind's holistic approach to substructure and foundation design, where C2MONDE plays a key role. See below how we typically see/do it:

• First, we provide a rigorous and site-specific characterisation of the Site Conditions, fulfilling design standards requirements;

• We then proceed to the Integrated Load Analysis (ILA) with C2MONDE, using either our proprietary C2FLEX software or load inputs from your preferred wind turbine supplier (note: C2FLEX's turbine library is regularly updated and validated, and C2FLEX usually carries you as far as the last round of the ILA); the main purpose of the ILA is optimise the design of the monopile;

• Lastly, we use C2MONDE to design the final bits of the structure and generate all of the necessary, detailed design and fabrication drawings. Our Technical Project Managers take it from there to the next phases of the project.

C2MONDE has been designed to keep a high level of flexibility, while providing automated, high quality, standard reporting. Thereby, it has been allowing us to take a greater part in FEED studies and detailed design projects. As Kasper Sokol, the lead engineer behind C2MONDE explains:

So far, we've used C2MONDE as main design tool for tens of FEED projects, and on few other design assignments. The tool is really flexible and allows us to carry out a great variety of tasks, both turbine suppliers and project developers benefit from it, during all phases of a project. With C2MONDE, we design monopiles ourselves, enabling all the C2Wind capabilities to be combined in one! 

In this context, the Verification Letter from DNV-GL comes at a good time. Over the coming months, a number of complex and competitive tenders will take place (see slide 7 of Ørsted's Q3 investor presentation), and many developers would benefit from optimised, turbine specific support structure design for their bids and potential detailed design.

We at C2Wind hope that you share our enthusiasm. From green field projects where Siting, Wind Resource- and Energy Yield assessment are key, to detailed design projects like the pioneering 800MW Vineyard Wind in the US, we're there to help you.

Don't hesitate to reach out to us by phone, email, social media; and let us build (more) wind farms together!

All the best, C2Wind.