We are energised by our work in renewables

There’s no doubt about it, renewable technologies are the way forward. The UK’s climate change goals are ambitious and we’re proud to support a wide variety of businesses that are making a prominent contribution to global, low-carbon objectives.

Osprey has been working with the renewables sector for over 15 years. This means we’ve seen the momentum in renewables increase at first-hand. It also gives us a unique insight.

There’s a consensus that renewable energy marks the biggest victory yet in the fight against global warming. Solar and wind are proliferating, new technologies are on the horizon, and the UK’s energy industry may now have the momentum to help it achieve some ambitious low-carbon targets.

In fact, the idea of not making the transition to renewable energy is now an anathema. Renewable energy is an essential part of the strategy to reduce carbon emissions, and Government’s most recent policy-push for the wind sector signals the enthusiasm for bold levels of ambition: 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 project schedules and, as a British company, living and working both locally and globally, we’re enthused by the aspirations that fuel the UK’s renewable targets.

Altogether, solar, wind and hydropower resources combined generate more than a quarter of the world’s electricity already; in China and India, it’s likely that share will surpass 60% by 2050, and the Climate Change Act 2008 committed the UK to reducing its carbon emissions by at least 100% (relative to 1990 levels), before 2050.

Most people agree that’s a brave ambition. In theory? Feasible. In practice? Challenging. We’ll need sustained policy interventions across the sector, many of which will be complex, costly and time-consuming. However, on the positive side, the support for renewables is increasing all the time, as is the availability of logistics’ innovation and insight.

Delivering the desired increases in output will need major investment in current infrastructure and we’ll also need a combination of technologies – on and offshore wind farms, biomass power stations and hydropower systems, solar technology and more.

We’ve worked with the leading renewable companies for years. But we don’t just deliver components to this sector, we try to deliver value by finding ways to work better, together. We strive to reduce risk and quantify uncertainty for developers 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.

This snapshot of projects we’ve delivered shows the wide range of critical renewable infrastructure we’ve transported and installed, and our appetite for more…

 

OSPREY | 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 £12.7 bn.

 

OSPREY | ONSHORE WIND

We’ve installed over 150 turbines to date. We currently have a team on site installing another 60 in 2021. 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 working practice between the many contractors who’ll usually be working together on a site.

 

OSPREY | TIDAL POWER

It’s a niche sector. But as the only British special logistics firm with the marine heritage and inventory to support these power producers in end-to-end planning, our teams have learned how to get the best from innovative transportation methods, and to deploy those insights in other sectors, too.

Working with the forward-thinking team responsible for ‘Oyster’, for example – a 650 tonne tidal structure – has given us new methods of delivering super-structures for the nuclear industry.

 

OSPREY | INNOVATION

Our teams have been delivering port services and specialist logistics through the Port of Blyth in Northumberland for years. This experience served us well as we supported GE, shipping the 720-tonne Haliade-X test nacelle into ORE Catapult’s test facilities.

 

OSPREY | NUCLEAR

Working with HPC for more than ten years, we’re now a Tier 1 status supplier – running barge operations in and out of the site in North 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 challenges to 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 cost savings in other sectors, too. We can give the project the maximum flexibility to maintain its construction schedule.

 

OSPREY | AVAILABLE AND ACCESSIBLE

We’re keen to help the sector increase its momentum. From our perspective, what’s important is that project planners choose suppliers who can not only support a wide-spread mix of logistics – but also make sure those myriad insights are fed back into each new project.

As a multi-disciplined team, we have the experience, the expertise, the inventory, and the appetite to work collaboratively: working better, together, delivering the physical infrastructure to enable climate change. We’re growing, we have innovation in our DNA and a diverse range of projects in our future.

 

IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC

The pandemic will clearly have an impact on the renewables sector. Not least, as human resources are tested in the field. We’ve developed with new ways of working that tackle these challenges head on and enable teams to prioritise QHSE.

In addition, depleting reserves and cashflow challenges will put every low-carbon energy provider under greater pressure to manage costs more effectively and increase the resilience of their supply chain. This creates opportunities to negotiate improved terms, it’s true, via aggregate purchasing and longer-term commitment – but there’s a hidden layer of savings that are available to planners who work collaboratively with cross-sector logistics expertise.

If you’d like to hear more about our approach to delivering savings, contact us.