Oil rig-style "offshore communities" to maintain wind farms

The difficulties in accessing and maintaining offshore wind farms around the UK means that "offshore communities" will have to live and work near the turbines on accommodation facilities similar to oil rigs.

That is the view of experts at the Carbon Trust who have identified accessing turbines in high seas as one of the main barriers to the successful development of the government's £100bn offshore wind strategy.

The improvement of maintenance support for offshore wind farms is one of the main focus areas for a £30m acceleration programme which is being undertaken by the Carbon Trust and is designed to support the rollout of the next phase of so-called phase three offshore wind farm projects.

Access to offshore wind farms is currently gained by boat or helicopter, both of which are problematic in the high wind conditions that are most likely to cause a turbine to malfunction.

The challenge of maintaining offshore wind turbines will become more problematic for larger round three wind farms, which are due to be announced on Friday and are expected to be located up to 150km offshore.

Experts have warned that access to some of the sites will prove so difficult that a turbine breaking down during the winter may have to wait months before an improvement in the weather allows it to be repaired, raising the prospect of maintenance workers being located near the wind farm to increase the speed with which turbines can be repaired.

One Danish wind farm already has an offshore community living next to it and the Carbon Trust predicts similar facilities will be built in UK waters.

"Turbine engineers are finding even on near-shore projects that they can't work after three hours on a boat in high seas," said Benj Sykes, senior technology acceleration manager at the Carbon Trust. "This is a very real problem, and I think we can expect to see offshore communities around the furthest farms."

Andrew Garrad, chief executive of Garrad Hassan, the world's largest wind energy consultancy, said last year that he expected workers to live inside giant offshore wind turbines in the future, in a similar way to lighthouse keepers.