SI Fiction: Offshore Wind Development for Geoscientists, from Site Investigations to Wind Farm Design

Course Description

This one‑day interactive course provides geoscientists with a practical, end‑to‑end introduction to offshore wind farm development. Participants follow the full project lifecycle, from early project framing and site investigations to concept design, using a realistic case study.

Combining concise lectures with team‑based assignments, the course immerses participants in real project decision-making. Through a “boardgame” simulation, teams define project goals, plan a site investigation (SI) campaign, interpret SI results, and design a fit‑for‑purpose offshore wind farm layout. This hands‑on format mirrors the multidisciplinary collaboration typical of offshore wind projects and demonstrates how geoscience influences engineering decisions, cost drivers, risks, and overall project feasibility.

Designed for geoscientists entering the offshore wind sector or collaborating within mixed technical teams, the course bridges subsurface expertise with offshore wind project delivery frameworks. Participants gain a clear understanding of how geoscience contributes to successful, risk‑aware offshore wind development in a rapidly evolving energy landscape.

Course Outline

A balanced mix of mini lectures, group based assignments, and feedback sessions:

1. Introduction to Offshore Wind & Project Lifecycle

-60 min - Lecture 1: Offshore wind fundamentals; development phases; introduction to the case study and Assignment 1. 

-30 min Assignment 1: Participants to get familiar with the project goals, constraints, risks and risks based on the materials provided (including a boardgame with that contains a map of the project area, Define a project time-schedule based on a Gantt-chart-puzzle in which the workflow-elements are predefined and have to be put in a specific sequence to make the project work.  

-15 min Feedback session: Evaluation of the project goals, risks, and sequence results from different teams. Discussion led by the facilitator. Facilitators will challenge by including unexpected events like weather delay, etc.

2. Planning Site Investigations

-60 min Lecture 2: Principles of offshore wind SI programs (GP, GT, GM); links between SI programs, project risk, and certification process (DNV).

-30 min Assignment 2: Participants to develop a Site Investigation strategy based on a card-game that contains cards that present the different SI-elements, including costs, timeline, and quality of the results.  Make the Site Investigation strategy fit within predefined budget and should meet the required Site Investigation quality as much as possible.

-15 min Feedback session: Evaluation of the SI Strategy of different teams. Discussion led by the facilitator. Facilitators will challenge  by including unexpected events like UXO discovery, budget cuts, etc.

3. Interpreting Site Investigation Results

-45 min Lecture 3: Geophysical and geotechnical data interpretation for OWF design (show issues with cable burial, pile refusal, geohazards, UXO, turbine spacing, etc.); introduction to Assignment 3. 

-45 min Assignment 3: Participants will interpret SI results based on a boardgame on which Site Investigation maps can be placed. Define the offshore wind farm layout on the boardgame based on the SI results.

-15 min Feedback session: Evaluation of the SI interpretation of different teams. Discussion led by the facilitator.

4. Wrap Up & Lessons Learned (45 min)

-Each team presents its final offshore wind farm layout, key decisions, risk considerations, and lessons learned.

-Open discussion and instructor debrief. Preparation & Course Materials.Materials provided include:    Worksheets with project information, One board game per team for OWF SI planning and design exercises.

Assignment 1: Empty Project Execution Plan (goals, constraints, risk register) to be filled out. Gantt-chart-puzzle.

Assignment 2: Cards with cost and quality per SI survey element.

Assignment 3: Map sets for interpretation and offshore wind farm infrastructure that can be put on the board game.

End of day survey to evaluate learning outcomes, pacing, and relevance. of day survey to evaluate learning outcomes, pacing, and relevance.

Participants’ Profile

The course is designed for geoscientists entering the offshore wind sector or collaborating within mixed technical teams, the course bridges subsurface expertise with offshore wind project delivery frameworks.

Prerequisites

Participants should have a geoscientific background. Some prior knowledge of offshore near-surface investigation techniques (seabed/shallow geophysical and geotechnics) would be beneficial.

About the Instructor

Tim began his career in geoscience consultancy, delivering multi-disciplinary subsurface evaluations across Europe and Africa for the oil and gas sector in both technical and project management roles. Tim has since pivoted his expertise toward the energy transition, working on sustainable geoscience projects including geothermal energy, geological storage, and offshore wind.

In 2025 he joined AFRY in the Netherlands as a Senior Geoscience Consultant. Since then he has worked as part of an “Expert Support Team” assisting the Dutch Government on the geophysical and ground modelling aspects of their soil investigations of the Doordewind (4GW) and Ten noorden van de Waddeneilanden extension offshore wind farm zones. 

Additionally, Tim has acted as Senior Geophysicist within an Owner’s Engineering team for a private developer in Taiwan, supervising the planning and execution of soil investigation campaigns and ground modelling studies for two proposed wind farms and their associated export cable routes.  Across his offshore wind projects, Tim has gained deep knowledge of offshore geophysical surveying techniques, including MBES, SSS, MAG, SBP, 2D UHRS and 3D UHRS. His expertise spans the full survey lifecycle, from initial reconnaissance to detailed micro-siting and UXO risk mitigation. Tim holds a BSc in Geology from the University of Durham, UK.

Jeroen Godtschalk has a MSc in geophysics from the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands and he is a Senior Consultant and Project Manager at AFRY in The Netherlands. Following his graduation, he joined the oil & gas industry and worked for 10 years with Bluewater Energy Services B.V. in The Netherlands. In the first years of his career he was involved in numerous site investigations (both geophysical and geotechnical) related to foundation design for Bluewater’s FPSO’s. Following the results of the site investigations, he also performed the foundation design, such as anchor piles or drag anchors. Later in his career he moved to more operational roles, where he was operations manager for one of the installation vessels of Heerema Marine Contractors. During this time, he learned the importance of offshore operations and all the factors that influence this. Ahead of the downturn in the oil and gas he moved to a sand mining/dredging company as Director of Production, where he was responsible for the whole production of the company in both The Netherlands and France. During this time, he was, again, involved in prospecting new locations for sand extraction where sand volumes had to be estimated based on site investigation work. In parallel, he co-created and is currently lecturer of the course “Offshore Wind Project Development Course” (created together with the DOB-Acadamy), where he is responsible for the part of “Site Selection & Permitting” for this course. 

Barbara Cox, PhD is Senior Consultant for AFRY Netherlands. She holds a PhD in Physics of Delft University of Technology and a MSc in Geophysics of Utrecht University. Barbara is a highly experienced Project & Team Manager with in-depth technical (subsurface) knowledge and an integral knowledge of the development of (sustainable) projects. Before joining AFRY, Barbara worked for Shell as a (Principal) Geophysicist on several disciplines, both abroad and in the Netherlands (among others: Innovation and R&D in Advanced Seismic Imaging, Areal Monitoring and Reservoir Surveillance) and as an Integration manager of Upstream/Midstream strategy projects. Among her responsibilities were: Project lead for the evaluation and implementation of different innovative offshore acquisition and monitoring technologies and Team lead for multi-disciplinary development planning. After that, she worked as Subsurface team manager and Project Management Office manager at Aardyn, where she led the teams to support the different stages (from appraisal to abandonment) of geothermal projects. At AFRY, Barbara is responsible for the offshore wind farm related site investigations, ground modelling, certification of the various scopes, and integration and innovation projects. Barbara likes to use her strong analytical skills to work on complex problems and simplify them in order to achieve results and solutions that move projects forward. She likes keeping an overview within multidisciplinary projects, whilst using her in-depth knowledge to ensure that high-quality results will be delivered.