Lifetime Extension Services
How Wood Thilsted can Extend the Life of your Offshore Wind Assets – From the Foundation Up.
Unlock More Value from Your Offshore Wind Farm
As offshore wind farms reach the end of their original 20–25 year design life, owners face an important decision: extend, repower, or decommission. Numerous studies show that lifetime extension can deliver major benefits, including increased ROI, reduced capital expenditure, enhanced energy output, and lower environmental impact when compared to full repowering or removal.
But the success of any lifetime extension strategy hinges on one critical component: the foundations.
Your foundations hold the structural integrity of the entire asset – and in harsh offshore environments, they endure relentless fatigue, corrosion, seabed interaction, hydrodynamic loading, and complex structural stresses. Ensuring they can continue to perform safely and efficiently is essential for unlocking additional operational years.
Extend with Confidence
Lifetime extension is more than just an engineering exercise – it’s a strategic opportunity to maximise the value of your offshore wind assets, reduce environmental impact, and secure years of additional clean energy production.
With unrivalled expertise in offshore wind foundation design and integrity, Wood Thilsted delivers the trusted, data‑driven insights you need to extend safely, responsibly, and profitably.
Foundations: The Critical Component in Lifetime Extension
Foundations Govern Long-Term Safety & Structural Reliability
Offshore wind turbines rely on foundations designed to endure decades of loading cycles, wave forces, and environmental wear. A significant portion of ageing offshore turbines are now reaching the point where detailed structural health assessments are required to determine remaining useful life and ensure safe continued operation.
Extending Foundation Life Defers Major CAPEX
Compared to the vast cost of repowering or decommissioning, extending the lifespan of existing foundations is economical and delivers significant cost-saving benefits as the asset works longer and harder generating further revenue.
Environmental Advantages
Extending the operational life of offshore wind assets significantly reduces environmental impact by limiting the need for new manufacturing, transport, and installation activities. By maximising the use of existing foundations and infrastructure, lifetime extension supports circular economy principles – cutting material waste, avoiding seabed and marine life disturbance, and lowering the carbon footprint associated with decommissioning or full repowering.
Additional Production
With robust structural assessments, predictive modelling, and risk‑informed maintenance, many foundations can support the safe delivery of years of additional clean energy – boosting asset value and extending revenue generation.
Why Wood Thilsted Is Your Ideal Partner for Foundation Lifetime Extension
Wood Thilsted is globally recognised for engineering excellence in offshore wind foundations. With deep experience in geotechnics, structural engineering, and asset integrity, we are uniquely positioned to assess, model, and optimise the continued performance of ageing assets.
Lifetime extension requires far more than visual inspections – it demands an intimate understanding of soil-structure interaction, fatigue progression, hydrodynamic loading, structural modelling, and long‑term degradation mechanisms.
Our specialists bring precisely this expertise.
Industry‑leading research emphasises the importance of load modelling, fatigue evaluation, and accurate assessment of remaining useful life for offshore turbines approaching end‑of‑design life.
Wood Thilsted’s bespoke modelling tools and assessment frameworks deliver precise insights into foundation capacity under extended operations.
Predictive technologies – such as those highlighted in industry analyses involving advanced sensors, condition monitoring, and AI-driven diagnostics – enable earlier detection of risks and targeted interventions.
We integrate operator data, foundation design expertise, proprietary software, and structural monitoring to determine actionable life extension pathways.
With evolving regulations such as mandatory end‑of‑life inspections, environmental codes, and international standards guiding lifetime extension, specialist support is essential. Wood Thilsted aligns your assets with all structural, safety, and environmental requirements – supporting a smooth approval process.
Lifetime extension strategies must be commercially compelling. Studies show that structural health assessments combined with targeted refurbishment can offer substantial profitability gains with minimal disruption.
Our technical insights inform investment decisions that reduce O&M expenditure and extend operational life cost-effectively.
Our Lifetime Extension Services for Offshore Wind Foundations
As your end-to-end offshore wind engineering partner, we adopt a holistic approach – looking beyond individual tasks to how each solution integrates with the entire project – reducing risk and maximising overall value.
Structural Integrity & Remaining Life Assessment
Detailed evaluation of fatigue life, corrosion, soil interaction, structural capacity, and failure‑risk scenarios, supported by comprehensive as-built assessments to verify actual construction conditions and ensure the accuracy of all lifetime extension calculations.
Structural Health Monitoring & Diagnostics
Deployment of sensor systems, data processing, and performance tracking for early warning of degradation.
Geotechnical Re-Evaluation
Updated seabed and soil assessments to reflect shifting conditions over time during operation.
Risk-Informed Life Extension Strategy
Holistic analysis following industry decision frameworks – including degradation mechanisms, environmental considerations, safety factors, and economic optimisation.
Engineering Upgrades & Mitigation Measures
Targeted interventions such as reinforcement strategies, corrosion protection improvements, or structural retrofitting.
Matt Simms, Chief Consultant
Wood Thilsted is a founding partner and has started work with eight partner organisations across five key Offshore Wind markets - Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain and the UK - on the the Offshore Wind Farm Life Management and Lifetime Extension (OWLIFE) JIP.
Contact: mjs@woodthilsted.com
Learn More About Wood Thilsted's Services
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