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October 2010 www.marinelink.com 41 MARLIANT: Non-stop Computing Platform Marliant represents a product range de- signed to overcome the challenge of se- curing the uninterrupted availability of computer applications on sea-going ves- sels or offshore installations. This new product seeks to help provide a reliable, secure and cost-effective (multi-user) Windows platforms with unconditional and uninterrupted avail- ability at all times, easily deployed and maintained, and suitable for both ‘retro- fits’ as well as newly build vessels. The system consists of an autonomous ‘single-cabinet’ server with integrated interruptible power supplies, data switches and (RAID) data storage and is completed with low-cost thin-clients re- placing PC’s throughout the vessel. A standardized modular approach serves to unify spares to be readily available at all major ports of call along the major ship- ping routes. Email: info@netwavesystems.com Funding Available: Carbon Trust Launches Global Technical Challenge The Carbon Trust last month launched a global competition to find world-lead- ing solutions to the problem of transfer- ring engineers and equipment safely from boats to wind turbines as far as 300km offshore in 3m wave heights. The project aims to improve the economics of offshore wind by boosting revenues by as much as £3bn at a crucial time for the next generation of Round 3 offshore wind farms. The need for better access solutions is driven by the location of the next generation of wind farms to be built over the decade. Today’s wind farms are typically less than 20km from shore in relatively benign sea conditions, but in future, wind farms will be as far as 300km offshore where they will operate in harsh conditions – excellent conditions for generating electricity, but challenging for operations and maintenance. The competition aims to generate at least a 4% increase in turbine availabil- ity through the development of new tech- nologies for the most challenging sea conditions. This in turn could increase the power generated, which would mean saving £3bn of lost revenue. This im- provement in availability would also save an extra 1.3 Mt CO2 per year. The competition is part of the Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator, a major industry collaboration with eight leading energy companies – DONG En- ergy, E.ON, Mainstream Renewable Power, RWE Innogy, ScottishPower Re- newables, SSE Renewables, Statkraft and Statoil –, which aims to drive down the costs of energy from offshore wind by 10%. The successful applicants to the com- petition will benefit from funding of up to £100,000 per concept to support the design and development of the successful concepts; the opportunity to work with eight leading offshore wind developers with licences to develop 30GW of off- shore wind capacity in UK waters (rep- resenting 60% of today’s licensed UK capacity) and potentially several million pounds of funding to take the concepts to full-scale demonstration. The competi- tion is supported by RenewableUK, IMarEST (Institute of Marine Engineer- ing, Science and Technology), RINA (Royal Institute of Naval Architects), SMI (Society of Maritime Industries), EWEA (European Wind Energy Associ- ation). Companies interested can submit their designs until 5pm, 26th November by Email: OWA@carbontrust.co.uk
