POWER aims to boost the development of off-shore wind energy in the participating coastal regions. It will focus on improved planning, participation and decision-making processes regarding offshore wind farms; supporting the establishment of off-shore wind energy industries and positioning the North Sea Region as a global hot spot for off-shore wind energy; and providing education and training courses to fulfil the need of the off-shore wind energy sector for specialist knowledge and a skilled workforce.

POWER will support the development of business structures and supply chains for offshore wind farms and will provide training for those who will work with wind farms. Also considered are the economic potentials for coastal areas (many of which have high unemployment levels) and the concerns of groups like fishermen and tourism organisations. POWER will generate ideas useful for any region wanting to develop offshore wind energy.

Expected Outcomes

The main outcome of the project is increased knowledge of management of Offshore Wind Energy plants, among interested student engineers, among professionals and among the general public. The last group is to be targeted amongst other things via an informational package and a travelling or simultaneous exhibition in all participating regions. During the project, the number of Offshore Wind Energy farms and hence, jobs should increase, as should the share of offshore wind energy in the total energy supply.

Activities

First of all, extensive research will be conducted into the opportunities and difficulties for making use of offshore wind energy. Public stakeholders will be intensively involved in the process. A pilot Decision Support System will be developed, which will include environmental, societal and utilisation issues. A guidance on the significance of environmental impacts will result from this first Work Package as well. In a second Work Package, a supply chain analysis will be conducted, and available facilities in the North Sea Offshore Wind Regions will be mapped. A third Work Package covers the support of training providers in the North Sea Region and the development of standards and certificates for offshore wind energy courses or modules. Appropriate methods and didactics will be provided in co-operation with offshore wind energy companies. Several summer schools on offshore wind energy will be held for both interested student and graduate engineers and companies. The curricula and evaluations of these will be published. The last Work Package focuses on the dissemination of gathered knowledge both between the project partners and beyond, by means of mailing actions, a website, a newsletter and an exhibition. Finally, the setting up of a new Offshore Wind Energy Information Centre in Oostend (Flanders) will be supported.

Reported Outcomes

A quick scan of all the partner countries has been carried out, including the state of affairs of general policies and public debate regarding wind energy and the offshore wind energy (OWE) in particular; inventory of planned and realized offshore wind farm projects; and description of decision-making processes as well as the network of actors involved in the OWE location decision-making in every country. The quick scan (4th and Final Edition) is available as a download on the web site http://offshore-power.net. The Best Practice - transnational case study (now known as Case Study - European Offshore Wind Farms has been compliled and presents a comprehensive comparison and comparable data from the eight selected (best practice) sites with the aim to analyse experiences and lessons learnt by developers of offshore wind farms. The purpose is to generate recommendations about 'good planning and realisation processes' in the North Sea Region is now available on the website. Furthermore, the preparation of conceptual design and the first draft has been presented concerning the planning guidance, now known as Challenging Offshore Wind: Guiding Experiences from the North Sea Region. The report will be distributed among the POWER partnership for comments and the Final Recommendations will be published at the Final Conference. The work on the information package, involving three major elements (information centre, information material and multimedia platform into one document) will be implemented in at least two integrated OWE information centres (Oostende and Bremerhaven). For example, amongst the tools that are being developed, a digitally animated construction DVD of the first Belgian Offshore Wind Farm, will now be used in the Klimahaus in Bremerhaven. The interactive Information and Decision Support System (IDSS) ANEMOS has been improved and introduced at the Offshore Summer School held on 4-9 September 2007 in Bremen. The Summer School attracted participants from different sectors and backgrounds (students, technicians, professionals from science/education and industry in Germany). The safety training under offshore conditions in the harbour of Bremen received local media coverage. A Qualification Requirement Study to map the necessities in education and training for the OWE industry in the partner countries has been developed. One interesting finding is that large companies in the OWE sector are currently using subcontractors in order to fill in the need in knowledge and experience. Another result is that the need for standardization in vocational areas of offshore wind power presents an important opportunity. POWER aims on building up a standardization for vocation training as a first initiative in the NSR. Furthermore, a database showing existing OWE training programmes is underway. In addition, a competence matrix is an important tool for future customers of education solutions to help determine the exact educational requirements for management employees in terms of competences and performance. For school working on educational solutions it is a requirement to determine the requirement of customers. Processing of standardisation of certificates/qualifications is an important bottleneck for future development in OWE. A first curriculum has been developed. Regional supply chain studies of the OWE sector have been conducted in the UK, Denmark, The Netherlands and Germany. The POWER German-English Offshore Wind Business Event was held as an official decentral event of the European Open Days on 5-6 October 2007.