James Fisher Renewables will operate, control and monitor critical assets through its 24/7 High Voltage Control Center, and will implement a proactive approach to condition monitoring. This will ensure continued high voltage transmission availability and reduce unplanned outages, mitigating potentially significant financial consequences and impact on progress towards net-zero emissions.
The contract will also see the team support Triton Knoll OFTO, ensuring the safety of the system is in-line with high-voltage (HV) safety rules, which have been developed and tailored by the James Fisher Renewables team. In addition, James Fisher Renewables will integrate the operations and maintenance of all auxiliary systems, as part of its unique wrapped service offering.
Jonathan Ball, Head of Operations and Engineering at James Fisher Renewables commented: “We’re extremely proud to be a key partner working alongside Equitix, contributing towards the delivery of 857MW of clean renewable energy into the transmission network. Building on our maintenance philosophy of honesty and transparency, this partnership marks another step towards full turnkey O&M solutions. As our portfolio grows, we are creating operational synergies that support our strategic partners by maximizing asset availability and managing risk, offering increased reliability and efficiency to lay the foundation for seamless operations. This project marks the latest in a series of successes and sees James Fisher’s global management portfolio reach 4.5GW across the entire renewable’s asset life cycle.”
Work for the multi-million-pound contract is scheduled to begin in December 2023 and has the potential to run for more than 23 years.
This will be the fifth collaboration between James Fisher Renewables and Equitix. In 2019 James Fisher Renewables was awarded a 15-year contract to provide operations and maintenance services on OFTO assets at Greater Gabbard Offshore Wind Farm. Then in 2021, the team were again awarded 15-year contracts to provide specialist operations and maintenance services on OFTO assets at Thanet, Gwynt-y-Môr and Humber Offshore Wind Farms.
Achal Bhuwania, CIO at Equitix added: “We were pleased to work with James Fisher again in support of our growing portfolio of renewable energy assets. As a responsible investor, we take pride in developing and managing global infrastructure assets which significantly contribute to the lives of the communities they serve. We believe James Fisher shares in our vision and values, and we look forward to the mutual benefits afforded by its capability to deliver operations and maintenance services, project management experience and highly skilled team.”