Here is a brief overview of what Sabik Offshore do to make offshore wind farms a safe environment for everyone.
At Sabik Offshore, safety at sea is our highest priority.
The global network of offshore wind farms is growing rapidly, particularly now during this time of renewable energy transition. As the infrastructure has developed and the number of wind farms has increased, it has become increasingly important for pilots to be able to identify and avoid them, for mariners to be able to navigate around them, and for maintenance crews to navigate safely within them.
In order to aid navigation, we provide lighting and marking solutions for offshore wind farms. Our specialist products are designed to suit the harsh environment at sea and have a proven track record. We have over 20 years of experience in our field and have been lighting offshore wind farms since 2009. We are driven by our love of the sea and passion for developing innovative technology.
Sabik Offshore are experts in lighting and marking offshore wind farms.
Mark it
The International Association of Marine Aids to Navigation and Lighthouse Authorities (IALA) sets out guidelines for marking offshore wind farms. For example, they say:
“It is recommended that each structure, where practicable, displays identification panels with black letters or numbers one meter high on a yellow background visible in all directions. These panels shall be easily visible in daylight as well as at night, either by using illumination or retro-reflecting material.”
[IALA Guideline G1162 – The Marking of Offshore Man-Made Structures]
The markings we create adhere to the IALA’s guidance and are a practical, helpful way of ensuring that mariners are able to navigate the wind turbine infrastructure. They incorporate adjustable lighting, to ensure that they are suitably lit at any time of the day or during times of low visibility in the sea’s unpredictable weather conditions.
As of January 2022, we have marked 4,000 wind turbines. We are committed to marking many more in the years to come, to ensure that offshore wind farms are safe environments to navigate.
Light it
Lighting wind turbines provides a safe environment in three important ways:
- Aviation obstruction lighting alerts pilots to the location of wind turbines and enables them to avoid them. All wind farms will need a medium intensity red flashing light on the nacelles of some of the turbines, although the exact number or distribution do vary from country to country. Increasingly, as turbines become taller and blades become longer, tower lights are also required to let pilots know how high the nacelle lights are. Many projects have additional country-specific requirements, for example lights that illuminate helicopter landing paths.
- Marine aids to navigation help mariners to find routes to travel around wind turbines, or to circumnavigate a wind farm entirely. Sabik Offshore Marine Lanterns can achieve ranges of up to 10 nautical miles and their characteristic flash pattern is a useful aid to approaching ships.
- Safety lighting is important for operations and maintenance crews. Boat landing lights enable them to travel safely to the site of a wind farm. Once at the site, our interior tower lights and platform lighting provide a safe working environment that increases visibility while reducing glare and light pollution allowing maintenance works to be completed safely and efficiently.
These three areas are linked together. Our integrated systems ensure the whole safety system at a site is effective and cohesive.
Keep it Safe
Establishing and maintaining a safe environment at sea is of the utmost importance to us. Our long-standing expertise enables us to support the manufacture of and early stages of installing a wind farm offshore, as well as ensuring these standards are maintained throughout its lifetime.
We are here to help with planning, construction, commissioning, operations, and maintenance of the marking and lighting system. A wind farm site must always be built with safety as a core consideration and our products play an important role in making that happen.
We are Sabik Offshore, your experts in marking and lighting offshore wind farms.
Get in touch, we’re here to help – our regional experts can give you more details for the development of your project.