The energy industry is in the midst of a transition from exploitation of fossil-based resources, "old energy", to more renewable sources of energy, "new energy". To date the biggest contributors to this energy transition have been developments within the wind and solar energy sectors. This paper will aim to highlight how the offshore wind energy industry has benefited from eighty years of oil & gas history and how new energy projects are developing existing technology further to address their challenges, which in turn can benefit old energy projects. This paper presents the historical context, common geotechnical solutions and improvements to these which have been introduced by offshore wind, including a case study with pile test results from Rødby in soil conditions that consist of hard to very hard clays. In these tests and subsequent back-analyses, the effectiveness of an external pile shoe for reducing the driving resistance and its effect on the lateral response are investigated. Findings of the Rødby tests are considered to be of value to both old and new energy projects.
Gülin Yetginer and Tor Inge Tjelta
Keywords: site characterisation, deep seabed CPTs, large plate load testing, pile installation, pile shoe, pile stiffness, lateral pile response, floating wind, large-scale field testing and structural & environmental monitoring
Publisher: DFI