Decision Support Tools

During the planning and operation of an offshore wind farm, various decisions have to be taken by developers and operators to obtain the highest availability and energy production at the lowest costs. 

During the planning phase, estimates need to be made about the costs, downtime and financial risks in order to assess the feasibility of the wind farm. Various scenario studies have to be carried out to assess the impact of the turbine reliability, assess the usage of vessels and crane ships and determine the most cost effective O&M scenario.

During the operational phase of a wind farm, an operator daily has to take many decisions related to of alarms, prioritising preventive maintenance actions, usage of vessels in combination with the weather conditions, obligations towards the utilities, or the availability of maintenance crews. On the longer term the operator wants to assess the future O&M costs he may expect, e.g. at the end of a warranty period when new O&M contracts need to be signed.

ECN has been developing knowledge, models, and tools that can be used in the planning phase of a wind farm (ECN O&M Tool) and during the operational phase of a wind farm to estimate the future O&M costs (Operation and Maintenance Cost Estimator, OMCE).

ECN’s tools and models for optimising the O&M procedures of (offshore) wind farms are mainly based on risk analyses which are applied as follows.

O&M costs  =  Failure frequency * Repair costs

Essential is the use of failure frequencies of components which need to be derived from wind farm data. ECN has developed procedures to collect, interpret, and analyse data originating from various sources like SCADA data, maintenance sheets, and logistic data (e.g. vessel transfers and stock control). For more than 15 years ECN is advising wind farm owners and O&M departments about collecting wind farm data in a more structured manner to make sure that they can use their in-house data set for O&M optimisation. 

Publications

Operation and maintenance cost estimator (OMCE) to estimate the future O&M costs of offshore wind farms
Rademakers, L.W.M.M.; Braam, H.; Obdam, T.S.; Pieterman, R.P. van de
ECN-M--09-126  September 2009; 12p.
Presented at the European Offshore Wind 2009 Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, 14-16 September 2009.

Operation and Maintentance Cost Estimator (OMCE) - Final Report
Rademakers, L.W.M.M.; Braam, H.; Obdam, T.S.; Pieterman, R.P. van de
ECN-E--09-037; October 2009, 50p.

Estimating Costs of Operartion & Maintenance for Offshore Wind Farm
Rademakers, L.W.M.M.; Braam, H.; Obdam, T.S. 
ECN-M--08-027; September, 2008; 10 pag. Presented at European Wind Energy Conference 2008, Brussels, Belgium, 31 March, 2008-3 April, 2008.

Tools for Estimating Operation & Maintenance costs of Offshore Wind Farms
State of the Art
Rademakers, L.W.M.M.; Braam, H.; Obdam, T.S.; Frohböse, P.; Kruse, N.
ECN-M--08-026; September, 2008; 10 pag. Presented at European Wind Energy Conference 2008, Brussels, Belgium, 31 March, 2008-3 April, 2008.

Estimating Costs of Operation & Maintenance for Offshore Wind Farms
Obdam, T.S.; Rademakers, L.W.M.M.; Braam, H.; Eecen, P.J.
ECN-M--07-120; January, 2008; 12 pag. Presented at European Offshore Wind Energy Conference 2007, Berlin, Germany, 4-6 December, 2007. 

Estimating Costs of Operation & Maintenance for Offshore Wind Farms
Eecen, P.J.; Braam, H.; Rademakers, L.W.M.M.; Obdam, T.S. 
ECN-M--07-045; May, 2007; 15 pag. Presented at European Wind Energy Conference 2007, Milan, Italy, 7-10 May, 2007.

RECOFF; Task 1: Standardisation of collecting failures and maintenance data
Curvers, A.P.W.M.; Rademakers, L.W.M.M. 
ECN-C--04-108; November, 2004; 11 pag.

Assessment and optimisation of operation and maintenance of offshore wind turbines Rademakers, L.W.M.M.; Braam, H.; Zaaijer, M.B.; Bussel, G.J.W. van
ECN-RX--03-044; June, 2003; 5 pag. Presented at European Wind Energy Conference 2003, Madrid, Spain, 16-19 June, 2003.

Operation and maintenance cost estimator (OMCE) to estimate the future O&M costs of offshore wind farms
Rademakers, L.W.M.M.; Braam, H.; Obdam, T.S.; Pieterman, R.P. van de
ECN-M--09-126  September 2009; 12p.
Presented at the European Offshore Wind 2009 Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, 14-16 September 2009.