1) Health, Safety & Environment at Offshore Wind Farms
2) Call for Papers - VGB Conference "Chemistry in Power Plants 2010"
4) Nuclear Power, Operation of Nuclear Power Plants - VGB PowerTech Journal 5/2010
The first VGB European Workshop on Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) for Offshore Wind Farms was hosted by E.ON Climate & Renewables. On April 21/22, 2010, around 50 HSE experts met in Düsseldorf to discuss the current status and future challenges to be faced in this sector.
To sum up, the conference revealed a significant need for the establishment and at least European wide harmonization of standards. As the offshore renewable industry is still in its infancy the compilation of existing experience to close knowledge gaps as soon as possible is of essential importance.
The following key findings can be summarized:
1. Support and input needs to be given in order to come to appropriate and practical solutions for occupational health and safety. Harmonization activities, like the standardization of offshore training are beneficial, especially for operators working in different countries.
2. Emergency organizations like the German Marine or the DGzRS (Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbrüchiger) have only limited access to rescue equipment which is adequate for offshore wind farms. It is necessary to intense the collaboration: combined rescue trainings on offshore wind turbines allow the rescue teams to make them familiar with local conditions.
3. Contractor management performance is a bottleneck for successful project development and construction.
4. The environmental impact research required by authorities is still very complex and therefore extensive in terms of labor, time and costs.
A follow-up workshop is scheduled for 2010.
More Information:
mailto:karl-heinz.puch@vgb.org
VGB’s annual Conference "Chemistry in Power Plants" will take place at the MARITIM Congress Centrum Bremen/Germany on October 27/28, 2010. The conference is a forum for operators of energy utilities and industrial power plants. Operating experience will be discussed and technical developments will be presented in the field of power plant chemistry.
Please submit your Call for Papers by May 10, 2010, at the latest to:
mailto:ines.moors@vgb.org
http://www.vgb.org/vgbmultimedia/Veranstaltungen/CIK10/CallCIK10_e.pdf
The VGB Job Market is offering prospective persons the possibility to develop their career in the range of power and heat generation. You can find current vacancies on our homepage.
http://www.vgb.org/en/jobmarket.html
Main topics of the May issue are: Operating Experience with Nuclear Power Plants; Safety by Simulation; Seismic Design of Nuclear Power Plant Buildings; Final Stage of First Supercritical 460 MWe CFB Boiler Construction - First Experience.
Abstracts of all articles are available here:
http://www.vgb.org/en/current_issue.html