MAINTENANCE STRATEGY SELECTION FOR AN OFFSHORE WIND FARM

Abstract: Growing industrialization and rising global population have led countries to look for ways to build sustainable energy capabilities. Wind energy has been a promising source of electricity. Offshore and Onshore wind power technology has the ability to tackle big energy and climate challenges, to cause economic growth and create employment. This thesis’ focus will be on offshore technologies. In order to expand globally the installation of these technologies, the installation costs as well as the operation and maintenance (O&M) costs during production stage for them must be reduced and accordingly, the right maintenance strategy should be identified to achieve that. The choice of offshore sites depends heavily on availability, acceptance, funding, availability of the grid and on such factors as depths of sea, weather conditions, logistics, distance from the shore and harbors and soil types are very important economic drivers for project and farm life. These factors also affect the choice of the appropriate maintenance strategy of the wind farm, and it is a great of importance to reduce O&M costs and increase the profits. In this paper, a maintenance strategy appropriate for a specific wind farm located in the Belgian North Sea will be tried to be chosen based on some criteria by the software Decision Analysis Module for Excel (DAME).