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Abstract

Offshore wind farms (OWF) are exposed to many uncertainties because of their remote locations and harsh environment. Operations and maintenance (O&M) costs of OWFs are mainly influenced by the reliability of physical assets and the weather and sea-state influenced uncertainties. In this paper, we investigate the various factors that affect the total O&M costs of OWFs. Whenever maintenance is needed, whether it is a planned activity or a reactive activity, several crucial factors come into play. There may be a waiting time for the weather and sea-state conditions to become stable enough for accessing the wind farm. The weather and sea conditions and the skill level of the vehicle driver (helicopter pilot or vessel captain) may also influence the traveling time of the maintenance crew from the shore to the wind farm. Once arriving at the target equipment, the time needed to perform the maintenance or repair activity may be influenced by both the weather and the experience of maintenance technicians. The model to be developed expresses the total O&M cost as a function of various stochastic factors. This model would be useful in various optimization models for decision making in terms of resource acquisition and maintenance optimization.

Keywords

Offshore Wind Farm, Operation and Maintenance, Uncertainty, Stochastic time factor

1.Introduction

The excessive wind resource availability and the high technology maturity make wind energy the most used among all the renewable energy sources [1]. The advantages of high productivity, having no visual impact or noise impact on human life, and not needing to control the impact on wildlife (especially birds) have paved the way for the continual development of OWFs from 20 MW to 18000 MW of global cumulative installed capacity over the past 15 years [24]. OWFs are very expensive assets, not only to build but also to operate and maintain [5]. The increased O&M cost is mainly caused by the uncertainties encountered by OWFs, which include but are not limited to weather, sea-state conditions and component lifetimes. The weather and sea-state conditions limit accessibility to OWF and increase downtime and production losses [6]. Uncertainty in component lifetime affects the number of corrective maintenance activities and thereby increases maintenance effort and costs.

Very few studies in the literature had represented the O&M cost...

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