European service operation vessel concept project

The multi-million Euro project, co-led by ARTTIC and Rolls-Royce Marine, will develop new designs and business concepts to meet the urgent and growing needs of the offshore wind operations and industry.

“Through the NEXUS project, we aim to provide a vessel concept with improved and new solutions for operations and maintenance of offshore wind turbines and farms. The overall goal is to make offshore wind power more cost-effective,” said Asbjørn Skaro, director of systems, Rolls-Royce Marine.

Challenging demands

The three year-long NEXUS project has been granted €3.3m from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 research programme.

With a total budget of €4.4m, NEXUS ultimately aims to deliver an optimised for maximum performance and safety with minimised lifetime cost by 20% and with reduced CO2 emission by 30% compared to current state of the art vessels.

NEXUS includes simulation, model testing and consideration of the most suitable construction and production principles for small series or one-off vessels of this type.

Key aspects of NEXUS include environmental impact assessment, cost estimation as well as both the marketability (technology push), and the cost effectiveness of the offshore operations concerned (demand pull).

The project also aims to enable an increase in the professional skills of workers and the capability of the European marine and maritime industry to develop and commercialise specialised vessels and related technology.

More information from @nexush2020 on Twitter and www.nexus-project.eu