Floating Offshore Wind Turbines : Mooring System Optimization for LCOE Reduction
Abstract: Offshore wind has a large potential in terms of electricity production and is becoming an important focus of interest for massive expansion of wind power. While encountering harsh environmental conditions and facing challenges in deployment and maintenance, offshore wind turbines benefit a lot from higher and more regular wind speeds if compared to conventional onshore wind turbine sites. Floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) in deep waters offer the possibility to increase the accessibility and unleash an enormous resource base by cost-competitive solutions further away from the shore. However, associated costs are still relatively high compared to other sources of energy. These costs could be reduced by developing technological breakthroughs and improving design processes. The work presented in this report is part of the H2020 EU project COREWIND, aiming to reduce FOWT costs by optimizing the mooring system technology and by introducing dynamic moor cable solutions. The main objective of this study in particular is to develop an optimization tool for the design of a cost-effective and reliable mooring system for floating offshore wind turbines. The scope of the study implies the development of an optimization strategy, involving Isight - a Dassault System software used for the analysis. The work also involves OrcaFlex, a finite-element software developed by Orcina, applied in dynamic analysis methods. A Python-based code was created to realize the coupling between the two software tools. OrcaFlex simulation models were built for two test cases provided by the project partners, validation of these models was performed based on results obtained using FAST. Finally, results obtained for a case study using one floater and one location of the COREWIND project are also presented and analyzed. The case study involves the development of a mooring system using the hereby validated optimization tool; and is testing its integrity on critical design load cases. The work has shown how an optimization tool could be constructed and applied to improve design process and reduce costs.
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