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Keystone Engineering Cuts Installation Costs by 20% on First Offshore U.S. Wind Farm

Keystone Engineering Cuts Installation Costs by 20% on First Offshore U.S. Wind Farm
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Keystone Engineering Cuts Installation Costs by 20% on First Offshore U.S. Wind Farm - 1

Bentley Advancing Infrastructure Project Summary Organization: Keystone Engineering Inc. Solution: Offshore Location: Block Island, Rhode Island, United States Project Objective: • Design jacket-type substructures for five, 6-megawatt wind turbine generators for the USD 290 million Block Island Wind Farm. • Optimize design to mitigate risk, minimize steel weight, and reduce fabrication and installation costs. Products used: OpenWindPower™ Keystone Engineering Cuts Installation Costs i by 20% on First Offshore U.S. Wind Farm OpenWindPower Shortens Design Time; Optimizes Steel Jacket Foundation Design Fast Facts • OpenWindPower's interoperability enabled two engineering firms using different software to collaborate, ensuring accurate modeling. • The offshore wind farm will reduce energy costs for Block Island residents by 40 percent and reduce harmful emissions. • The Block Island Wind Farm is located 15 miles from the U.S. mainland and 3 miles off the shore of Block Island. Performing multiple simulations and design iterations simultaneously in OpenWindPower shortened the design cycle by 50 percent compared to European offshore wind projects. The iterative design process made the deck and jacket 15 percent lighter using OpenWindPower's design optimization. Building an Alternative Energy Source for Coastal Cities Deepwater Wind, a leading offshore wind developer based in Providence, Rhode Island, undertook the USD 290 million Block Island Wind Farm project to supply less expensive power to residents. As the first commercial wind farm in the United States, the project demonstrated the feasibility of offshore wind as an alternative energy resource for U.S. coastal cities. Keystone Engineering (Keystone) was retained to design jacket-type substructures for the five, 6-megawatt wind turbine generators. Keystone used Bentley Systems' OpenWindPower software to streamline communication with the generator designer (Alstom), and to model the complex aerodynamic and hydrodynamic loading profile for the deep-water platforms. Bentleys flexible, interoperable offshore design and analysis software shortened the design cycle time by enabling the design team to create simultaneous simulations for multiple design iterations, and helped reduce installation costs by optimizing the substructure design for weight and strength. Clean Energy, Big Savings As a clean energy source that is currently cost-competitive with natural gas and nuclear power, onshore wind already represents a $100 billion investment in the United States. Offshore wind has the added advantage of tapping stronger, more reliable wind resources than onshore wind farms. Deepwater Wind advocates for the use of offshore platform technology proven in the oil and gas industry to build wind farms in deep ocean waters miles offshore, where they are barely visible from land yet still close enough to serve major population centers. Taking the lead from successful offshore wind farms in Europe, Deepwater Wind saw an opportunity to provide cost-competitive energy from wind off the coast of Rhode Island. The Block Island Wind Farm will supply 30 megawatts of power to about 17,000 homes via a subsea cable. Due to the otherwise high cost of electricity on the island—currently four to five times higher than in other U.S. locations—the offshore wind farm is projected to reduce energy costs for Block Island residents by 40 percent, as well as reduce carbon dioxide and other harmful emissions resulting from the diesel generated electric power that is currently used. Wind and Wave Loading The challenge for the team designing the highly dynamic wind turbines involved compensating for the complex loading onto the support structures by both wind and wave action. The design needed to account for the coupled effects of the aerodynamic and hydrodynamic loading, including extreme loading situations such as turbine control faults and hurricane-force winds. To calculate the loads, model the fatigue performance, and engineer the platforms to withstand various load combinations over a 20-year design life, the Keystone team utilized OpenWindPower, Bentleys offshore design and analysis software. Keystone Engineering designed jacket-type substructures for five wind turbine generators. Oil and Gas Model As an innovative solution for the design of the deep-water wind turbine support structures, the Keystone team adapted the steel jacket foundation design typically used in the oil and gas industry. Bentley OpenWindPower enabled Keystone to design the composite construction and complex nodal geometry of the jacket substructures, delivering an alternative to the typical monopile concrete foundations that are limited to offshore wind farms located in more shallow water depths.

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Keystone Engineering Cuts Installation Costs by 20% on First Offshore U.S. Wind Farm - 2

"OpenWindPower Wind Turbine module allowed us to streamline the analysis process, thereby reducing the design cycle time, the cost to the client, and the risk of errors in managing the tremendous amount of data needed to perform over 3,000 time-domain simulations." —Zachary Finucane, P.E, Project Manager, Keystone Engineering Inc. Find out about Bentley at: www.bentley.com Contact Bentley 1-800-BENTLEY (1-800-236-8539) Outside the US +1 610-458-5000 Global Office Listings www.bentley.com/contact To collaborate with the turbine generator designer, Keystone relied on OpenWindPower's...

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