Health and Safety in the Norwegian Offshore Wind Industry: Knowledge Gaps and Research Needs

Offshore wind is a growing industry with inherent safety challenges. Previous research has concluded that the safety of offshore wind maintenance personnel remains an understudied topic. A literature search conducted as part of this study confirms these findings. Our study explores potential knowledge gaps regarding maintenance personnel safety in the emerging offshore wind industry in Norway. Data collection includes a) a survey sent to members of the Norwegian Offshore Wind Health, Safety and Environment (NOW HSE) working group, and b) notes from researcher guided group discussions at a NOW HSE workshop. The results show that research participants experience an overall knowledge gap regarding health and safety themes in the industry, particularly related to the coming regulatory framework. We argue that there is a need for developing research-based knowledge, in particular studies with a system perspective considering the whole value chain. Given the study's relatively limited scope we argue that more thorough studies of safety knowledge in the industry is needed.

Keywords: Offshore wind, Energy transition, Emerging industry, Safety, Health, Sociotechnical systems, High-reliability organizations.