Testing the robustness of optimal access vessel fleet selection for operation and maintenance of offshore wind farms

Journal Article · Sat Sep 23 00:00:00 EDT 2017 · Ocean Engineering

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2017.09.009· OSTI ID:1411323

Sperstad, Iver Bakken ^[1]; Stålhane, Magnus ^[2]; Dinwoodie, Iain ^[3]; Endrerud, Ole-Erik V. ^[4]; Martin, Rebecca ^[5]; Warner, Ethan ^[6]

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1. SINTEF Energy Research, Trondheim (Norway)
2. Norwegian Univ. of Science and Technology and SNITEF Ocean, Trondheim (Norway). Dept. of Industrial Economics and Technology Management
3. Univ. of Strathclyde, Glasgow (United Kingdom)
4. Univ. of Stavanger (Norway)
5. EDF Energy R&D UK Centre, London (United Kingdom)
6. National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)

Optimising the operation and maintenance (O&M) and logistics strategy of offshore wind farms implies the decision problem of selecting the vessel fleet for O&M. Different strategic decision support tools can be applied to this problem, but much uncertainty remains regarding both input data and modelling assumptions. Our paper aims to investigate and ultimately reduce this uncertainty by comparing four simulation tools, one mathematical optimisation tool and one analytic spreadsheet-based tool applied to select the O&M access vessel fleet that minimizes the total O&M cost of a reference wind farm. The comparison shows that the tools generally agree on the optimal vessel fleet, but only partially agree on the relative ranking of the different vessel fleets in terms of total O&M cost. The robustness of the vessel fleet selection to various input data assumptions was tested, and the ranking was found to be particularly sensitive to the vessels' limiting significant wave height for turbine access. Also the parameter with the greatest discrepancy between the tools, implies that accurate quantification and modelling of this parameter is crucial. The ranking is moderately sensitive to turbine failure rates and vessel day rates but less sensitive to electricity price and vessel transit speed.

• Research Organization: National Renewable Energy Lab. (NREL), Golden, CO (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), Wind and Water Technologies Office (EE-4W)
• Grant/Contract Number: AC36-08GO28308
• OSTI ID: 1411323
• Report Number(s): NREL/JA-6A20-65621
• Journal Information: Ocean Engineering, Vol. 145, Issue C; ISSN 0029-8018
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

17 WIND ENERGY
offshore wind
O&M
logistics
optimisation
simulation
sensitivity analysis