2022 in a review.
Now that we have officially entered the year 2023, we are happy yet nostalgic to look back at the fantastic past year. Because yes, 2022 was an exceptionally important year for Marlinks. The Virya Energy investment opened many additional doors for us. This involved certain objectives to be achieved, but we were ready with the entire team to bring these objectives to a successful outcome. That is precisely why 2022 was a year of growing together. Before we start off with our year in review, we would like to express a sincere “thank you” to all our old and new customers, our partners along this journey and all our followers. We are grateful for the trust you put into our company, and we look forward to continuing building a carbon neutral future with you.
Defining our targets together.
To set the right direction, we started 2022 with a strategic roadmap exercise. Through this roadmap exercise, the Marlinks team set the targets for the upcoming year. It was important to bring up topics from different perspectives in a transparent way. This ranged from general issues to discussing upcoming conferences and analyzing existing actions and services. Four focus points were also determined: Internationalization, Cable Protection System (CPS) & Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS), Optimization & Growth and moonshot ideas.
1. Internationalization
A majority of the Belgian offshore wind farms in Belgium uses one or more Marlinks services. Partly for this reason, it was important to seek unknown waters and expand internationally. With projects in France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Germany, United Kingdom, United States and Taiwan, we believe we have succeeded in this mission. In the meantime, our Business Developer Iris Jiang has also moved to Taiwan to be even closer to our Asian customers.
2. Cable Protection System (CPS) & Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS)
Launching a new product is not evident, but we believe enormously in the potential of CPS monitoring through a DAS device. Last year, concerns about cable protection systems increased massively. By identifying how CPS abrasion translates into strain data and analyzing whether different types of CPS strain events can give a risk level of the CPS, we can reduce risks and save costs for the operator. Therefore, it was important to go full force and work on the development and promotion of this promising service.
3. Growth & optimization
We not only grew within the team, but also our number of projects increased tremendously. Everything indicates that Marlinks has taken a big step forward. In additional to expanding projects within Europe, we are now also active within the American and Asian markets. These markets are in their beginning blocks but investing heavily in renewable wind energy. It makes us proud as a company that we are trusted nationally and internationally to reduce submarine cable damage as a monitoring partner.
In addition, we continued to invest in the optimization of all Marlinks services (Depth of Burial, Real-Time Thermal Rating and Cable Exposure) via Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS).
4. Moonshot ideas
The monitoring possibilities with DAS and DTS are extensive, therefore the goal was to think outside the box as well. No idea was crazy enough during this topic. By thinking creatively, we listed some moonshot ideas. For example, we started working on a model where we can monitor vessels via fiber optic and Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS). Other ideas we had? Well, that stays a secret for now!
If you want to go far, go together.
In the past year, we have not only been busy with interesting developments, projects and conversations. We are also involved as a partner in the international GO-SENS and BOPTIC project.
- GO-SENS
This is a three-year long project where seven partners are collaborating on the development of next generation solutions within distributed optical fiber sensing (DOFS) for real-time monitoring of the well-being of high-voltage power cables.
- BOPTIC
The project idea originated from the understanding that it is crucial to have the knowledge and tools to detect and mitigate failures in cables and foundations of offshore wind farms as this is the key to large cost reductions and to economically viable wind production as an energy source. The BOPTIC project therefore targets to reduce O&M costs by focusing on the Balance of Plant (BOP) of offshore wind farms through the use of emerging optical (OPT) sensing technologies and advances in both data handling and data mining tools for improved condition and structural health monitoring of both power cables and foundations.
Travel around the world with us.
By participating in various conferences and events, we have had the pleasure of meeting great people globally. By attending these events, more organizations have gotten to know Marlinks, but we have also gained better insights into the offshore wind sector. The evolution this sector is making is visible not only in Europe, but all over the world.
Sneak peek of 2023.
With a new strategic roadmap in sight, we are going to further analyze the past year and set the focus points for the upcoming year. There is no doubt that after the fantastic past year we only want to confirm and of course continue to optimize, innovate and grow.
Learn more about Marlinks.
Do you have any further questions about this article or our Marlinks services? Please feel free to contact us at sales@marlinks.com.
Related news
Poster Award at WindEurope Copenhagen for RTTR monitoring
Our R&D lead Manly Callewaert won the conference poster award at the WindEurope event. In collaboration with Elia, we succeeded in challenging the industry standard and improving the time accuracy on how to calculate the core conductor temperature within subsea cables for the offshore wind industry.
BOPTIC research project
The project idea originated from the understanding that it is crucial to have the knowledge and tools to detect and mitigate failures in cables and foundations of offshore wind farms as this is the key to large cost reductions and to economically viable wind production as an energy source.
First impressions of our East Asia Business Developer in Taiwan
Within the APAC region Taiwan is a frontrunner in view of the transition towards renewable energy, having released in 2022 its “pathway to net zero emissions by 2050”. This pathway includes Taiwan plans on introducing 1.5GW of offshore wind capacity per year between 2026 and 2035. Whilst speaking, the auctions (also called round 3 auctions) for these capacities are ongoing. Floating wind will make its entry as well, seen the Bureau of Energy has promoted developers to submit projects including floating technology for the round 3 auctions.