YOUR PROPULSION EXPERTS
1,300 service deployments at 66 wind farms across 7 countries: the Danish company ZITON A/S specializes in providing services and maintenance within offshore wind operations. Its customers include offshore wind owners as well as turbine manufacturers who require reliable and efficient solutions for construction, operation and maintenance and for wind farm decommissioning.
Ready for another decade of reliable offshore wind services
In order to provide flexible and versatile services at wind farms in Northern Europe, ZITON operates a fleet of four dedicated jack-up vessels. One of these vessels, the WIND, was purchased by the company in 2007. At that time, the 55 metre long and 18 metre wide WIND already featured main and auxiliary propulsion solutions from SCHOTTEL, two azimuth thrusters (550 kW each) and one retractable rudder propeller (450 kW).
This summer the WIND was in the shipyard for its scheduled five year overhaul according to class requirements. While in dry dock the three azimuth thrusters needed to be overhauled to be ready for the next challenges in the wind installation business. To perform this task the Danish owner contacted Thomas Nielsen, the representative of SCHOTTEL in Denmark. He has been assisting the customer with service requests and carrying out service jobs for many years. Thomas Nielsen planned this complex project together with the Field Service & Repair team at the German headquarters.
Keeping the fleet running
“Thomas discussed the scope of the docking with the customer and provided us with all the relevant data. This close cooperation enabled us to coordinate the deployment and spare parts planning with precision and prepare the overhaul thoroughly,” explains Michael Sabel, Head of Field Service & Repair at SCHOTTEL. “The customer also requested that there were to be no impediments impacting the tight schedule of the vessel, so a diversification and implementation of our global repair network was needed.”
No sooner said than done. The stern thrusters were dismantled by the shipyard in the Netherlands, overhauled by the service partner in Denmark and reinstalled at the shipyard. The retractable unit was dismantled on-site. Individual components were repaired in the workshop of the subsidiary, SCHOTTEL Netherlands, in nearby Zoetermeer. The entire operation was monitored on-site by field service technicians from the German headquarters in Spay. “It was quickly established that the Dutch shipyard is able to provide us with excellent support which meant that only one SCHOTTEL service technician needed to be on site as a supervisor”, adds Michael Sabel.
concludes Technical Superintendent Daniel Falk Gregersen at ZITON.
“We benefited from SCHOTTEL's diversified After Sales Service including OEM workshops, subsidiaries and local partners. Thanks to this, the entire overhaul could be carried out on time – from perfect planning and implementation to on-site support. This is how a service job should work,” concludes Technical Superintendent Daniel Falk Gregersen, at ZITON.
