Teamwork is the Foundation of our Success

By Ian Haugh - CFO

As our Scottish Enterprise grant-supported FastRig operation and performance testing project nears installation on site at Hunterston Parc in North Ayrshire, the life of this particular CFO has taken a turn towards the outdoors.

Recently, some of my time has been focused on ensuring that the existing foundation of a test 200m wind turbine is adapted to accommodate our 40-tonne aluminum wing/steel-based retractable FastRig.

Repurposing this foundation fits neatly into one of our founding principles, which is to employ the same materials multiple times as a fundamental element of the SGS business model.

This repurposing has involved hydro-demolishing some of the existing concrete foundation, re-machining the existing 2m deep bolts, designing adaptors, and regrouting the base in readiness for the 24-tonne steel base to be lowered onto those bolts before being properly secured and tested in advance of the 20m, 14 tonne wing being brought to site and fitted to the base in situ.

This is quite the team effort. Avinash Hingorani, who is our COO, has taken charge of the civils work and is now in a position to write a paper on grouting. Sam Bourne, who has worked directly on the project throughout, is, amongst other things, making sure that the base is drilled with sufficient precision to fit those bolts.

Recently, I was joined on site by Sam and a variety of contractors and potential contractors to plan the outline of the installation with crane and transport operators. On a beautiful day in the sunshine (it was a bit chilly, I’ll admit), we met with the civil engineering contractors who are preparing the foundation, the engineering contractors who are assembling the base and will be responsible for its commissioning, and with those crane operators who literally and metaphorically seem to make light work of lifting the base off the transport and lowering it onto those bolts.

Seeing the site for the first time and talking to those who do those works really brings home the magnitude of what we are doing both on that site and in creating an opportunity for the shipping industry worldwide to meet its obligations to reducing CO2 and other emissions.

The site acquisition and preparation have all been a little beyond what we envisaged when we first applied to Scottish Enterprise back in 2019. We have leased the site from Clyde Port Operations, jumped through the planning permission hoops, enclosed the site, laid new drainage, and, as the work above comes to a close – though I haven’t mentioned the 50 tonnes of concrete we are pouring for the headstand and wind mast foundations – we are moving into temporary offices, welfare units, changing rooms, and storage units. We are creating a small village – with its own independent power source so that we can host interested shipowners, operators, journalists, and investors all keen to see the FastRig in action.

The steel base and the wing itself are due on site and commissioned during January. What a day THAT will be, the FastRig raised for the first time.

The next few months will be used to ensure that the FastRig meets all of our and the certification bodies, safety requirements, as well as a program of performance tests – the wing and base are fitted with sensors to measure stresses and strains and the like, and, along with measuring the direction and strength of the wind, we will be able to validate the CFD and towing tank data we have been gathering over the last few years.

This is a key learning phase – the one coming – but we have learned so much already. One key lesson is the need for thermal underclothing when visiting remote coastal areas in Scotland.

For an Accountant who has spent a lot of time flying a desk, visiting fabricators and assemblers, and meeting with people who think moving 40 tonnes of metal is no big deal, it has been an exciting and educational diversion. I’m looking forward to more of that.