Development of a combined operational and strategic decision support model for offshore wind

As offshore wind farms are built in increasingly remote and difficult to access locations, there is an increased cost and risk associated with operations and maintenance. This results from operating in harsher climates, the need to use specialised vessels, large losses associated with down time and greater technical uncertainty from using wind turbines without a significant operating history. There is a need for developers to understand how operational parameters influence overall costs and the exposure to risk associated with different working strategies. By linking a detailed operational model with decision making analysis, it is possible to identify the optimal developer strategy at different times throughout the wind farm life. This paper presents a modelling framework to achieve this objective as well as an illustrative case study.