In December last year, Zhenhua Pufeng Wind Energy (Hong Kong) Co., LTD. (Zhenhua Pufeng), a joint venture between Zhenhua Heavy Industry and Pufeng Marine Engineering, announced that it will introduce Europe's most advanced Sea Breesze class offshore wind power installation vessels in the first quarter of this year. This year, the offshore wind power installation ship arrived as scheduled and will serve the Chinese offshore wind power market.
Attractive market capacity
For the offshore wind power market, Zhan Liang, general manager of Zhenhua Pufeng, told the "Shipping Transaction Bulletin" reporter that "this market has a large capacity", starting from the 0.15 million kilowatt experimental unit of CNOOC Bohai drilling platform in 2007, and developing to the current China offshore wind farms have been put into production of about 660,000 kilowatts.
In December last year, the National Energy Administration issued the National Offshore Wind Power Development and Construction Plan (2014-2016), which includes 44 projects in 8 coastal provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities) with a total capacity of 10.53 million kilowatts. At present, 14 projects have been approved, with a total scale of about 2.91 million kilowatts. Preliminary work is being carried out on 30 projects with a total scale of about 7.62 million kilowatts.
It is reported that about 10 offshore wind power projects will be started this year, with a total scale of about 2.2 million kilowatts. According to the National Energy Administration, China's offshore wind power development goal is to reach 30 million kilowatts by 2020. At present, offshore wind power has entered the path of rapid development.
Based on the good prospects of offshore wind power, the market of wind power installation vessels has also risen. Wind power installation ship can effectively reduce the cost of offshore wind power development. As the core of dedicated installation and maintenance equipment, the construction of wind power installation ship is the only way to reduce the cost of offshore wind power development. In offshore wind power construction projects, the wind unit equipment cost accounts for no more than 50%, while the installation and construction cost accounts for more than 20%, which is the potential link to reduce costs. Therefore, the construction of professional installation equipment has become the only way, and wind power installation ships are its core equipment. However, Zhan Liang revealed that the current offshore wind power installation ships are in short supply. Globally, although the number of dedicated offshore wind installation vessels has increased from two in 2005 to more than 40 last year, the number of wind installation vessels is still very limited compared to the large number of offshore wind projects currently planned or under construction, and one wind installation vessel needs to serve multiple offshore wind projects. The short supply is good for the profitability of wind power installation ships.
According to the plan, by the end of this year, China's offshore wind power installed capacity will reach 5 million kilowatts; It will reach 30 million kilowatts by the end of 2020. According to the 5 MW single-machine capacity calculation, by 2020, China will need at least 6,000 fans, and at least 600 will be installed each year on average. At least 10 wind power installation ships are needed based on the annual capacity of 60 installation ships per typhoon vehicle installation ship. According to the current investment quota of 20,000 yuan per kilowatt of offshore wind power in China, the market capacity of wind power installation vessels is expected to be 42 billion yuan between 2010 and 2020.
Between 2014 and 2020, the global wind power installation vessel market will increase by more than five times in value. Specifically, the global wind power installation vessel market is expected to increase in value from $560 million last year to $2.93 billion in 2020, a compound annual growth rate of up to 30%. The increasing demand for wind power installation activities is the main driving force for the market growth. It is estimated that the global annual production of offshore wind power was 1.78 GW last year, and this figure will rapidly increase to 7.85 GW by 2020, and the prospect of offshore wind power ship market is promising.
The state-of-the-art Torben
According to Zhan Liang, the introduction of the wind power installation ship "Torben" was built in 2011, the ship is completely designed for offshore wind power installation business, and on the basis of the second generation of European offshore wind power installation platform for large-scale improvement, performance has been greatly improved, becoming one of the world's most advanced offshore wind power installation platform.
"Torben" is 100 meters long and 40 meters wide, with a designed maximum load capacity of 8 sets of Siemens 3.6MW wind turbines (including blades and towers), which will minimize the number of times to return to the base dock and wind farm, and improve installation efficiency. The four 78-meter legs will make Torben suitable for deeper waters (up to 45 meters deep) and mud depths, which is suitable for almost all wind projects in China's offshore waters. The effective wave height of 2.5 meters provides Torben with more operating window time. Torben is also equipped with a 1,000-ton Liebherr full slewing crane, six Rolls-Royce full slewing thrusters, and a second generation dynamic positioning system, which provides the ship with powerful power and efficient manoeuvring and positioning. Since its commissioning, the ship has participated in the foundation construction and fan installation of the Nordsee Ost project in Germany (295MW, commissioned this year) and the GwyntyMor project in the UK (576MW, commissioned at the end of last year) invested by the German RWE Group.
On the surface, Zhenhua Pufeng only introduced a European advanced offshore wind installation ship, in fact, it also includes the technology company behind it and Maersk Group.
Zhenhua Pufeng is based on Zhenhua's technology and ship management talents, and cooperates with the technical guidance of A2SEA and RWE OLC, Pufeng's partners. The three partners are absolute leaders in the field of offshore wind power engineering, A2SEA is a joint venture between Danish energy giant DONG and Siemens, and the parent company of RWE OLC is the largest energy group in Germany and the second largest offshore wind owner in Europe, with a combined market share of more than 50% in Europe. Pufeng is A2SEA's exclusive partner in Asia Pacific, and RWE OLC, as the original owner, will fully cooperate with Zhenhua Pufeng to use the vessel in Asia.
At present, the most major offshore companies in Europe have a deep relationship with Maersk Group. Zhenhua Fufeng, as the exclusive partner of Maersk's brokerage business in Asia, has cooperated with Denmark's A2SEA, Germany's RWE OLC, DBB, etc., relying on Maersk Group in the past three years, and signed memorandums of cooperation with these companies in 2013 and last year. Exclusive cooperation on core equipment in Asia.
Zhenhua Pufeng took the lead in introducing the German RWE OLC wind power installation ship "Torben", and locked up several other ship core equipment, almost all the European market can be introduced to the Asia-Pacific region of the core equipment in the bag.
The best is yet to come
After Zhenhua Pufeng confirmed the introduction of "Torben", it received high attention from the domestic industry. In addition to introducing the most advanced ship equipment, it will also join hands with top European engineering design companies to better serve China's offshore wind power market on the basis of digestion and absorption.
Torben's entry into China will soon serve the broader offshore wind power market. It is reported that the "Torben" will be successively invested in CGN Wind Power's first offshore wind farm operation in Jiangsu, Taiwan offshore engineering, Fujian offshore wind energy and other projects, and quickly put into the installation and construction of China's offshore wind power projects. The market is optimistic about the role of "Torben" in the Chinese market in the future, "we want to use advanced equipment, technology and all aspects of the supply chain in the same industry to cooperate, to efficiency, strive to serve customers well, and make positive contributions to the healthy and stable development of China's offshore wind power market." Zhan Liang said.
China's current offshore wind farm construction efficiency is still very low, in addition to the equipment and installation technology is not mature enough, host and other equipment supply and project construction coordination are the two major problems limiting the improvement of construction efficiency. "European investors have predicted that in the future, with the decline in equipment prices and the improvement of engineering efficiency, the cost of offshore wind in Europe has more than 30% of the room to fall."
Although the current cost per kilowatt of offshore wind farms in China is much lower than in Europe, the improvement of efficiency and the decline of equipment prices after mass production still provide a lot of room for the development of offshore wind power in China. Imagine a 200MW offshore wind farm project calculated according to the current construction period of 12 months, if the construction period can be shortened by 3 months, then only the financing cost can be reduced by nearly 30 million yuan, not counting the income of early power generation. Therefore, to make great efforts in installation technology and supply chain management, this is not an engineering ship enterprise can do, need owners or general contractors to jointly promote.
The introduction of "Torben" is only the first step of Zhenhua Pufeng's layout in the offshore wind power market. In the future, Zhenhua Pufeng plans to establish a joint venture engineering enterprise with investment enterprises and energy enterprises in the target coastal provinces, and accumulate experience and scale to build a professional engineering enterprise with projects in the target provinces as the entry point. It will gradually deepen the field of offshore installation technology, offshore after-sales operation and maintenance, and offshore wind farm investment at home and abroad, and does not rule out the possibility of introducing other offshore wind power installation platforms.
"Shareholders are very optimistic about the future prospects of China's offshore wind market and the important role of offshore wind in the new energy sector, and this provides valuable practical experience for China's relevant offshore industry technology and the implementation of the offshore 'power strategy'." Zhan Liang said.