Worldwide, there are nearly too major offshore wind projects identified as live or due to go live in the next three years according to the Energy & Industries Council. The maintenance costs alone for these projects are forecast to be more than $2obn over the next 20 years.Experiences from the offshore oil and gas sector show that reality can be very different when it comes to balancing the cost and time pressures associated with major projects. In practice the focus, particularly when completion deadlines draw near, is to minimise capital cost, complete on time, adopt minimum specification to meet minimum contract/commissioning requirements, minimise any penalty costs, and "just get the project signed off"! All perfectly valid in the right context; but the flip side is a legacy of unnecessarily high opex costs required to sustain asset integrity for the lifetime of the asset.
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