Maintenance optimization of offshore wind power

This study aims at increasing the knowledge within renewable energy, of which offshore wind power is believed to be one important technology. This technology is in an early stage of development and in order to be competitive against conventional energy sources, further cost reduction is needed. One potential area of cost reduction is offshore maintenance logistics. To explore this area, findings from expert interviews are combined with industry data and literature to create a cost model. This model is used to explore the impact of major cost drivers of offshore maintenance; distance to shore, weather downtime, number of turbines, and number of service hours. The results are presented graphically and used to explore two offshore-based concepts with site conditions of a future planned wind farm. The compared concepts are an accommodation platform and a vessel capable of hosting technicians offshore. An availability simulation is performed to compare the performance of the two service strategies. It reveals an equal performance level together with a positive availability impact of using helicopters for maintenance. The concepts are further elaborated on in order to explore their individual potential of cost reduction and the compounded effect is discussed. The results from the study show that the cost structure is impacted differently by the cost drivers depending on the logistical setup. Another important aspect of the service strategy is balancing asset capacity to service demand. The authors believes that knowledge of this study is vital for decision making in order to bring down the cost of offshore maintenance, thus the levelized cost of energy, making renewable energy competitive.