Osprey celebrates World Engineering Day

As a British firm, with a global outlook, we get closer than most to some of the challenges and solutions that epitomise World Engineering Day for Sustainable Development (WED).

Working with a proposal from the World Federation of Engineering Organisations, WED is an official ‘international day’ that was proclaimed in 2019 by UNESCO (the United Nationals Educations, Scientific and Cultural Organisation). It’s an opportunity to celebrate engineering and the contribution of the world’s engineers for a better, more sustainable world. Renewables are a key focus in this ambition.

Renewable energy is a vital part of the Government’s strategy to reduce carbon emissions. By 2030, the wind sector alone could be producing up to one third of the UK’s electricity needs. We feel this surge of activity in our schedules and, as a British company, living and working locally and globally, we’re enthused by the aspirations that fuel the UK’s renewable targets.

Osprey has always been people oriented. We see our engineering teams for who they are, as well as what they can deliver. In terms of contributing to a better, more sustainable world, our teams of engineers have been working with the renewables sector for over 15 years. This means we’ve seen the momentum in developing alternative energy sources increase at first-hand. It also gives us a unique insight into what the future might hold and how great engineering skills can help us to make the most of our planet’s natural potential. After all, renewable energy marks the biggest victory yet in the fight against global warming. Solar and wind are proliferating, the UK’s engineers are making huge strides towards implementing new technologies, and we’re proud to be involved in these developments.

One excellent example is our engineering work in tidal power, a niche sector for the time being but one that’s delivering impressive results. To date, we are the only British special logistics firm with the marine heritage, cross-sector engineering skills and owner-operated inventory to support these power producers in end-to-end planning. Our engineers know how to get the best from innovative transportation and installation methods, and to deploy those insights in other renewable’ projects, too.

Our engineering teams have been working with the leading renewable companies for years. But we don’t just deliver components to this sector, we deliver value by finding new engineering methods and ways to work better, together. We strive to reduce risk and quantify uncertainty for project managers in the planning, financing and execution phases of a project. The more certainty around outcomes, the quicker we can make the journey to a low carbon economy for everyone.

These snapshots show the wide range of engineering skills we bring to each sector, transporting and installing critical infrastructure in the UK and around the world:

OSPREY | ENGINEERING IN TIDAL ENERGY WIND

In 2021, the forward-thinking team at Orbital Marine launched the world’s largest tidal turbine, off the coast of Scotland. Osprey loaded the O2 out from the construction site to a launch site using a line-configuration of Self-Propelled Modular Transporters (SPMTs). The engineering plans for this project were created in close conjunction with Orbital, for this unique asset. Once at the launch site, Osprey loaded the O2 onto a barge and, in a world’s engineering first, the barge was then taken to the float-offsite and submerged to a depth of 13  metres, from which point the O2 was floated off and tugged out into position.

OSPREY | ENGINEERING IN OFFSHORE WIND

We’ve been using our barges and heavy-lift equipment to transport the widest range of components out to 22 offshore wind farms, over a hundred major components in total, which gives us a unique perspective on planning construction logistics.

Those components include monopiles, transition pieces, jackets, nacelles, blades, WTG towers, array cables, export cables, offshore substations and trenchers. These projects combined have seen us working on over 1,000 offshore wind turbines, delivering over 4,500 megawatts, representing an investment of £12.7bn.

OSPREY | ENGINEERING IN ONSHORE WIND

Our engineering teams have installed over 210 onshore wind turbines to date. Our heavy-lift team has the experience to not just supply cranes handling the ever-increasing weights and sizes of these turbines’ components, but also to facilitate better practices between the many contractors who’ll usually be working together on a site.

OSPREY | ENGINEERING IN NUCLEAR

Working with HPC for more than ten years, we’re now a Tier 1 status supplier – with civil engineers and project managers running operations in and out of the site in Somerset; liaising with fabricators around the world; and organising the widest range of specialist logistics through the Shared Services operation at Hinkley. The marine route to HPC, the River Parrett, poses a unique series of engineering challenges for megastructure construction, but the lessons we’ve learned here (how to load and unload critical infrastructure despite being encumbered by large tidal ranges), have contributed to significant cost savings, which can be applied to other sectors. We can give the project the maximum flexibility to maintain its construction schedule.

If you’d like to hear more about how we’re promoting engineering skills, cross-sector, contact us.