Decommissioning

A predictable, growing line item

Every turbine installed eventually needs to come down: either at the end of its operational life, as part of a re-powering project, or because of catastrophic failure. The lift constraints that make installation difficult also make decommissioning difficult. The cranes that put a 100-meter machine up cannot trivially take it back down 25 years later; offshore, the WTIVs are no easier to book for decommissioning than they are for installation.

Operators with large fleets are now sizing decommissioning provisions in earnest. The line item is not theoretical, and it is not small.

How CLS Wind helps

The elevating platform that installs is the same one that decommissions. No second equipment class, no second mobilization plan, no second engineering review. Components come down in the same controlled, sensor-informed sequence that they went up. Onshore, the small construction footprint of KINKA LIFT™ is a real advantage: legacy wind sites are often neighbors of land that has been re-zoned in the intervening decades, and a working footprint much smaller than a crane operation reduces neighbor impact and permitting friction.

Offshore, ORCA LIFT™ performs decommissioning from the same sub-1,000-ton crane vessel used for new installation, drawing on the broad supply of amortized offshore oil and gas vessels rather than competing for the small number of bespoke WTIVs.

Which platform to ask for

• Onshore decommissioning: KINKA LIFT. Often combined with re-powering on the same site.
• Offshore decommissioning (fixed and floating): ORCA LIFT. Same vessel class as install, same sensor-informed lift sequence in reverse.