Sicherheit von Offshore-Windenergieanlagen

Safety of Offshore Wind Turbines

The first German offshore wind farm alpha ventus was built in water depth more than 30 m. Are the design principles for these offshore wind turbines (OWT) erected about 60 km distance to the coast similar to the principles used for wind-turbines onshore? What about the risk of these investments and how is it defined?
In 2009 researchers of the Leibniz Universität Hannover started the research project Probabilistic safety assessment of offshore wind turbines (PSA OWT) to think about these and further questions. Since then ten institutes from the faculties of civil engineering, electrical and mechanical engineering research together in the field of the safety of OWT. Regarding the immense volume of offshore investment the target objective is to determine and to evaluate the reliability of the total system as well as individual system components. The main questions were discussed with representatives of industry and certification to bring the interests and needs into line.
The current safety assessment of OWT are presented in this paper with respect to national and international regulations.