East Coast College Pilot MEMIR Simulator For Wind Industry

As offshore wind energy becomes an increasingly important part of the global energy transition there is a growing need for specialised incident response training to accommodate the unique challenges faced by companies operating in the sector, which can be quite different to onshore wind or other energy production environments.

Offshore wind farms are usually remote, generally unmanned and are therefore exposed to a range of risks which require a specialised response.

An important part of the training exercises is exposing students to the pressure of a real incident. For example, there is usually a large quantity of information moving around which means a lot of data to be captured and managed. 

Effective communication is also essential – whether face to face or via radio, phone or email – with several external agencies. For example, if a vessel had a collision with a wind turbine the coastguard would be notified and would need to be kept up to date, and other vessels in the area may also be required to assist with rescue. Training in communication and management of these external agencies is therefore a vital part of the exercises.

The media will usually be involved as it’s important that information is accurate and reported through the right channels. The IR team needs live news feeds and dynamic whiteboards to manage their event log and vessel POBs. They also need a location map which dynamically shows all vessels in the area of the wind farm, to add to the realism and effectiveness of the training.

Pisys and the college use the simulator to model the behaviour of an offshore wind farm which helps train IR teams to deal with scenarios involving offshore wind farms including:

• Dealing with unidentified vessels 
• Handling technical failure of turbines
• Technicians transferring to site & remote working (Man overboard)
• Accidents on manned turbines
• Potential ship collision at manned turbines
• Medical emergencies
• CTV incidents
• Operating Base incidents

The Pisys simulator allows assets and scenarios to be easily modelled – creating a realistic platform which can be used to model the sophisticated scenarios described above. The system can be used online or in-person and includes dynamic whiteboards, maps, simulated CCTV footage plus real time communications using radio and email. A configurable news feed can be used to supplement the information available to students

The Pisys simulator creates the level of realism needed to really train and evaluate performance under pressure. A particularly useful feature is the ability to hit ‘pause’ if things are not going to plan, enabling the students and instructors to take a break, discuss next steps and pick up where they left off.

Overall, the system is far more effective than the typical ‘chalk and talk’ training methods and is successful in providing the depth and realism that students need to prepare them for real life incidents. 

As a result of adopting the Pisys system the college is able to offer high quality training to the wind energy sector and the feedback from Offshore Wind Industry Operators has been excellent.