The G+ Global Offshore Wind Health & Safety Organisation, a sector safety body backed by nine leading sector players, said it is “disappointed” by a sudden rise in the number of injuries tied to lost workdays reported in 2019.

Figures compiled for the G+ Incident Data Report 2019 reveal a general trend of improvement in the health and safety of the offshore wind sector, but also show the reported number of lost workday injuries rose significantly to 62 in 2019, compared to 39 a year earlier.

The report data shows that out of the 62 lost workday injuries, some 45.2% of these were reported on board vessels, mostly crew transfer vessels (CTVs), 24.2% while working on wind turbine generators, 27.4% in onshore and 3.2% in other offshore operations.

Restricted work day injuries and medical treatment injuries both fell in 2019 when compared to 2018, but the total recordable injury rate rose. As with previous years, no fatalities occurred in the sector in 2019.

The report said there were 252 high potential incidents in 2019, continuing a decreasing trend since 2016 when there were 344. High potential incidents are defined by the G+ as incidents that had the potential to cause a fatality or a life-changing injury.

Lifting operations and working at height are seen as the main work processes where most high potential incidents occur. Both work processes have seen a decline in comparison with 2018, of 2% and 6% respectively. The main areas where these types of incidents occurred were in wind turbine generators and vessel operations – mostly on CTVs.

G+ said CTV incidents resulted in the highest number of high potential injuries (47), the highest number of emergency response or medical evacuation injuries (20), and the highest number of overall injuries in 2019 (108).

CTVs are used to transfer personnel to and from offshore wind farms. Therefore incidents involving CTVs can impact on a large number of individuals. In 2019, one CTV incident alone resulted in 15 lost work day injuries. In this case, injured personnel required medical evacuation, as this was also classified as high potential.

“Despite significant progress made in 2018, we are disappointed with our 2019 incident data,” said Tove Lunde, G+ chair and Equinor’s head of safety, security and sustainability. “While the difference is in part driven by a change in the metrics used to collate and analyse the data, it is nonetheless still a focus for attention and action.

“G+ and its members have been working with the wider supply chain to ensure the lessons learned from these incidents are made freely available, as well as to establish whether appropriate G+ guidance was in place and followed.

“We continue to work tirelessly to improve the industry’s safety performance, building our international collaboration and embracing new regions, cultures, and rapidly developing technologies.”

The G+ member companies are EDF Renewables, EDPR, Equinor, Orsted, RWE, ScottishPower Renewables, Siemens Gamesa, SSE and Vattenfall. The report also includes regional incident data from the countries in which G+ members operate.

A senior Shell executive warned last year that offshore wind is lagging well behind the oil & gas industry over safety. Offshore wind experienced 256 high-potential incidents – with the possibility of death or life-changing injury – in 2018, said Dorine Bosman, Shell’s vice president for offshore wind.

Wind at sea’s rate of total recordable incidents was 4.55 per million hours worked, compared to 0.9 per million in oil & gas, she said.

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