Qualifications Needed by Certified Verification Agents - Structural Integrity of Offshore Wind Turbines - page 111

registration process to provide a specific minimum level of work experience
and competency, although the experience and competency may not
be directly related to offshore wind facilities. BOEMRE would determine
whether an organization having international engineers with credentials
equivalent to those of a U.S. registered professional engineer would be con-
sidered acceptable for providing CVA services.
The guidance on activities to be performed at each stage of the project
is similar to that provided in Part 250 and summarized in the section on
offshore oil and gas CVA above.
EVALUATION OF ACCREDITATION APPROACHES
Generally, there are two approaches in determining whether a person or
organization is qualified to perform CVA activities: project-specific and
authorized list. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of each approach
with regard to offshore wind turbines are examined below.
Project-Specific Accreditation
This approach is used by BOEMRE for offshore oil and gas CVA selection
and is inherent in the proposed CFR language for offshore wind turbines.
A CVA is nominated by the operator for each project and must be approved
by the BOEMRE regional director.
The regional director is responsible for evaluating the qualifications of
the proposed CVA and determining whether the nominee is suitable. This
can be cumbersome if the regional director does not have sufficient time,
expertise, or staff to devote to these evaluations and could lead to delays in
projects as they await approval or to rubber-stamping of nominees with-
out proper consideration of their qualifications. However, this approach
has the advantage of producing current qualification information from the
potential CVA, and the qualification process is readily auditable for each
project.
No process and no objective criteria are available for use by the regional
director in determining whether a nominee is qualified for a given project
and scope, and there is no way to estimate how long the determination will
take. The process should be clearly defined, and operators should have an
expectation of the time required to approve the nominee.