How it has grown among wind asset owners
The business requirements for how to create a diversified aftermarket have been formulated in a feasibility study - sponsored by and co-developed by these seven wind asset owners
More or less every week during the last three years, O2O WIND (sister company of O2O SPARES) has arranged meetings for WTG owners operating the same turbine models. Within O2O WIND, we have +50 energy companies from +35 countries collaborating on wind farm operations. At every such meeting, operators always reach out to others, asking for spares.
Speaking with the WTG owners, we thought that if wind asset owners collaborated on spare parts, it would be a game-changer for the after-market.
We contacted the bigger wind asset owners who partly self-operate their portfolios and called for a first meeting. It was decided that Equinor, Vattenfall, Shell, RWE, Eurus Energy, Enel Green Power and Falck Renewables would sponsor and co-develop a feasibility study with us.
From mid-January to mid-April 2022, we had weekly meetings with very concrete homework in between. All companies participated in all meetings with a high degree of commitment.
The main ambition of the feasibility study is to diversify the aftermarket. In the feasibility study, this ambition is supported by 15 business criteria formulated by these seven energy companies.
These seven companies have co-produced this feasibility but have not yet confirmed participation in O2O SPARES.
The outcome of this combined effort can be enquired below.
Equipped with a freshly baked feasibility study, we have travelled around Europe and presented it to wind asset owners. In addition to a very positive response, some meetings have been very valuable and have given the project a new development.
Presenting it to WTG owners all across Europe
The team: 50 % digital & 50 % procurement
We are foremost building a digital solution and the complete nightmare is that an offshore operator, on-site, discovers that the spare part they got through O2O SPARES is incorrect and not fit for purpose. We need a digital partner who understands article management and ERP integration. We also need strong competencies in wind procurement and spare part classifications.
It was a former head of procurement at one of Europe’s biggest utilities who gave me the tip about this procurement person. First, he had some suggestions about some former Gamesa top management persons then he interrupted himself and said I have the perfect candidate for you and described this person. Then he concluded that he is probably in a very comfortable situation and has moved away from Europe. Long story short this person is now in our team to become the CEO of O2O SPARES.
Onboard we have also a spare part expert who has been creating spares solutions for OEMs and WTG owners for decades.
In addition, we have the interest from our proven concept to support us in building this spare part collaboration.
Our most important and vital source of advice comes from the wind asset owners being part of the collaboration. We will only listen to them in shaping this collaboration.
To be developed in two steps
The first thing our potential CEO did was to speak with some of the seven companies who have developed the pre-study with us. In those discussions, he understood that we must first build the spare parts collaboration and thereafter we can build the marketplace on top.
The entire production of the feasibility study has been inspired by collaboration and openness. However, apart from the willingness, we can state that there is a complete lack of structure for how this should be done. This can create uncertainty among those who want to share. Everything has been about selling spare parts. However, sharing spare part data creates many advantages and has become a completely separate project that creates value as a stand-alone product. This is explained on a separate page - please click here: “How it works”, to learn more.