October 18, 2019

GWO to unveil top 25 Hazards & Risks at WindEurope Offshore

Data-driven decision making will increasingly drive training standardisation in wind. Jose Jimenez, Governance and Risk Manager at Global Wind Organisation explains the role GWO’s Risk Register will have in moving the industry forward.

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In 2019, GWO embarked on an ambitious path to ensure all training standard development is conducted in a fully transparent process, supported by evidence.

On November 27 at the WindEurope Offshore exhibition, I will present the results of stage one in this journey; a qualitative research programme, identifying the top 25 risks and hazards facing wind turbine technicians across the world.

Led by the GWO Audit & Compliance Committee, with the support and guidance of Committee Chair Lisa Mallon and Vice Chair Jesper Bagge Hansen, we can now demonstrate how the top 25 list can support the industry in observing and monitoring risks in a dynamic way. Ultimately, the goal will be for training standards to be developed and reviewed in a way that reflects those hazards and risks.

Lisa Mallon: Chair of GWO Audit & Compliance Committee, EHS Projects and Services Executive, GE Renewable Energy

The news so far is promising. Of the top ten risks identified; eight already have a corresponding GWO training standard as a mitigating tool, while the remaining two are set to be covered by our planned Control of Hazardous Energy Standard (coming Oct 1 2020).

The methodology behind the Top 25 list is from a qualitative process, collecting insight from GWO members. These 20+ respondents represent the pinnacle of industry environment, health and safety knowledge, coming as they do from the world’s largest manufacturers and owners of wind turbines. Their input has allowed us to rank the top risks and hazards in a universal way.

One of the industry’s greatest challenges is to normalise the way it reports safety information from company to company, country to country or even site to site. However, the process of creating the GWO Risk Register and agreeing common terminology for risks and hazards sets us on a good path towards creating a truly universal system of data-driven decision making.