Marine coatings, ship coatings, paint consultants, VOC management
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Wind farms
Safinah provides coatings expertise to wind farm owners, builders and insurers on new constructions and failures on existing structures.
There has been a a huge investment in wind energy and a major increase in wind farms throughout the world to meet the need for renewable energy. The number of windmills installed and planned for the future continually rises. Meanwhile the existing wind farms are starting to age and coating issues have arisen.
Windmills are often placed in harsh environments e.g. in the sea, which attack the coatings.
Safinah provides assistance with
- Coating specifications for new constructions
- Identifying causes of failure
- Recommending procedures to repair coatings
- Specifying coating types for repair
- Estimates on the cost of repair
Case Study: Wind Farm Coating
The Client
Wind Energy Company, Insurance Company
The Project
An offshore wind farm with windmills erected on mono-piles started to show evidence of coating failure after a few years. The failure was identified as corrosion and blistering from the splash zone upwards.
Safinah were instructed to examine, quantify and identify the reason for the coating breakdown for the owner and their insurer. Based on this, a procedure to repair the windmill in situ was then proposed.
The Outcome
Safinah’s repair recommendations were followed and Safinah was asked to inspect the repair process to authorise the work as it progressed. The repair was successfully carried out to the owners and the insurance companies satisfaction.
Case Study: Wind Turbine Coating Specification
The Client
Wind Energy Company
The Project
A major wind turbine energy company when planning a new installation needed Safinah's expertise to provide coating strategies and specifications for different windmill locations. They needed to:
- Look at existing processes and procedures and make recommendations on changes/improvement.
- Develop the requirements of a functional paint specification to meet different corrosion environments.
- Develop a paint scheme that is suited to the production and operational needs to maximise the through-life performance.
The Outcome
Coating specifications were created to cope with the environment the turbine would be placed in. These related to the coating scheme as well as the method of application in order to meet production requirements.
Case Study: Functional specifications to reduce through life costs
The Client
The owner of a fleet in Northern Europe
The Project
To develop a method to assess the technical merit of bids from rival paint companies after the owner had put a fleet coating contract out to tender.
Safinah used a functional coating specification approach to identify the key attributes for the client in the critical vessel areas.
The Outcome
The owner selected coatings based on through life costs and technical merit - rather than simply on the basis of the lowest bid.
The selected products are performing in line with expectations.
The client continues to use Safinah for technical support work.
Latest Industry News
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Windfarm Coating Specifications
February 2010
As more windfarms are built companies are realising that a particular specification for the coatings is needed to prevent failures in use and costly repairs. Both land based and offshore towers need have particular specification requirements. Read the full article in PCE magazine here.
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Safinah Initiate 'Design for Improving Structural Protection' Research Project
December 2009
In partnership with
Safinah was audited by LRQA, in areas covering; "The provision of consultancy services for coating in the marine, protective, offshore and heavy duty markets" and gained accreditation to ISO9001:2000 in March