4G Mobile Network

Overview

Hornsea 2 offshore wind farm, the Worlds largest offshore wind farm at the time of completion covers an area of 400km². It comprises 165 Siemes Gamesa 8.0-167 DD Turbines.

Located approximately 90km off the UK’s Yorkshire coast it will have a capacity of 1.4GW providing enough power to over 1.3m homes.

The wind farm output will bring more low carbon power to the UK and support further opportunity for economic growth in the Humber region. It will also make an important contribution towards the UK goal for renewable electricity generation and to achieve the UK’s energy security and carbon reduction objectives.

The Customer Requirement

A reliable, cost efficient and scalable 4G LTE network for the construction and operational phases of the Wind Farm.

Building efficiencies into the construction and operations of a wind farm is a challenge without super fast and reliable connectivity.

The data connectivity network purpose was to provide this advanced internet connectivity for workers on the various vessels operating on the construction and future performance of the wind farm.

Building efficiencies into the construction and operations of a wind farm is a challenge without super fast and reliable connectivity. Modern machinery, work practices and software applications rely on high speed, low latency networks to ensure efficient operations.

There were some minimum technical criteria to satisfy including:

• Delivery of a temporary solution during the construction phase of Hornsea 2 for up to 400 people across 5 Vessels.
• Requirements per vessel in for temporary solution ranged from 10/10Mbps – 30Mbps/30Mbps.
• Guaranteed speed requirements of 50/50Mbps for the permanent solution for the Windfarm.
• Coverage for the entire wind farm and a minimum of 5 nautical miles beyond.
• 24/7/365 support.

The client had a preference for environmentally efficient and sustainable solutions.

The Vilicom and Orsted teams

The Solution: '4G Public LTE Network'

Vilicom assessed and proposed several solutions to Orsted. The final solution chosen was a Public LTE Network using Vodafone UK Core network.

This afforded wind farm users the full reliability and support of Vodafone UK service while on or offshore, and provided Orsted with the comfort of a Tier 1 network operator.

Vilicom contracted directly with Orsted and subsequently integrated the Vodafone service into its off shore network build, in a seamless end to end network service delivery to the customer. Effectively this public open LTE network was achieved by expanding Vodafone UK’s LTE network offshore to the target coverage areas for Hornsea 2.

The service provided included securing a Spectrum Access Offshore Mobile licence, designing and managing the logistical shipping of Vodafone basestations and radio units that were deployed at each off site location. At the onshore substations, a transmission unit was installed to enable backhaul to Vodafone UK’s core.

With this solution, Ørsted was able to avail of the full suite of Vodafone LTE services that are available onshore and can leverage Vodafone’s existing roaming agreements with other UK and international mobile network operators.

This allows seamless LTE network access for personnel using their own or company issued devices as they move from onshore to offshore using Vodafone UK’s network.

Network Description

Installation of 4 offshore sites, comprising 3 radio sites on the wind farm and 1 radio site on the Reactive Compensation Station (RCS) located between the wind farm and the onshore sub station, which affords connectivity for vessels on the sailing route from and to the wind farm.

The offshore sites are connected to the Onshore Substation (ONS) via fibre where the interconnect to the MNOs core network is facilitated.

The purpose of the network is primarily to serve the needs of those working on the Vessels at sea for their work applications but also their leisure time, therefore careful consideration was required to ensure the network communicated at peak performance with each ship.

Network connectivity for the Sea Vessels (SOV, CTV, W2W)

Vilicom provided network backhaul connectivity to the vessel by installing pickup omni Antennas on the starboard and port side of each vessel and feeding this to a network CPE, which connected to the in-vessel network infrastructure/ Distributed Antenna System (DAS).

Operational support & service management

Vilicom provide 24/7/365 from its Network Operation Centre in Reading and offer a dedicated SLA for network availability.

Vilicom provide 24/7/365 from its Network Operation Centre in Reading and offer a dedicated SLA for network availability.

Functionality will be available to troubleshooting the network. A full suite of performance counters and KPIs will be captured for each site location, allowing significant remote troubleshooting capabilities.

Vilicom have a Global Wind Organisation (GWO) trained team available for fast response on call support, remote and onsite troubleshooting/repairs.

Proactive maintenance of all off-site locations is provided by Vilicom.

Contact

For further information please contact Gearóid Collins at gearoid.collins@vilicom.com

About Vilicom

Vilicom is an expert provider of wireless services with over 20 years experience in the analysis, design, test and implementation of wireless networks. Vilicom’s strengths lie in technology strategy consulting, the design of wireless networks, transmission network design, implementation of specialised coverage solutions and network benchmarking and testing. Vilicom has delivered its trademark end-to-end services in over 20 countries for network operators, network equipment vendors, industry regulators and investors. It delivers value for its customers by adopting a flexible, customer-focused approach, retaining cutting-edge expertise and maintaining its independence.