Emergency preparedness and response - Insights from the emerging offshore wind industry
The rapid growth in Offshore Wind Farms’ (OWF) sizes and distances to shore requires the offshore wind industry to enhance their cooperation and willingness to interact in alliances with their competitors to ensure a fast and safe rescue setup of the Emergency Management Plan for the combined sector instead of choosing individual approaches. This research investigates the present OWF Emergency Management (EM) from the operators in the preparedness and response phases and investigates how the governmental agencies are involved in the EM of OWF. The key stakeholders to influence the creation of a common helicopter rescue cluster are presented with their direct and indirect influences. Furthermore, this research presents a way for the key stakeholders in OWF EM in cooperation and alliances to create common rescue clusters for enhanced emergency rescue of an injured technician.
Therefore, the objectives of this empirical research are to (i) provide an insight in the overall emergency preparedness and response plans in the Danish OWF and (ii) investigate the present weakness of the emergency preparedness and response plans for the Danish OWF. As, preparedness and responses actions are fundamental aspects of any emergency management plan, furthermore, this research also aims to answer the question “Can Offshore Wind Farm emergency preparedness and responseplans be improved through enhanced stakeholder collaboration and helicopter rescue cluster building?”.
