O&M Modeling of Offshore Wind Farms – State of the Art and Future

Developments
Masoud Asgarpour, Aalborg University
John Dalsgaard Sørensen, Aalborg University

Key Words: offshore wind farm; operation and maintenance; inspection plan; health monitoring plan; O&M cost estimation;
maintenance strategy optimization.

SUMMARY
In this paper the state of the art in O&M models for O&M
cost estimation of offshore wind farms is discussed and then, a
case study for O&M cost estimation of an 800 MW reference
offshore wind farm is given. Moreover, a framework for an
ideal O&M strategy optimizer to achieve the maximum
possible O&M costs reduction during operational years of an
offshore wind farm is described and recommendations are
given.
1 MOTIVATION
Offshore wind energy is growing rapidly in Europe. By
the end of 2014 about 2500 offshore wind turbines were
installed in Europe, making a cumulative installed capacity of
8 GW. Moreover, there are European and government plans to
install turbines amounting to another 32 GW of offshore wind
energy by 2020, making a cumulative installed capacity of 40
GW. Moreover, Asian countries and the US are slowly
planning their first offshore wind farms. Despite the rapid
growth of offshore wind installations, the offshore wind
industry is not yet a mature industry and several enhancements
can be done to reduce the cost of energy. In Equations (1) and
(2) cost of energy (CoE) and levelized cost of energy (LCoE)
calculated using the discount rate are shown.
‫ ܧ݋ܥ‬ൌ  ሺ‫ ܺܧܲܣܥ‬൅ ࡻࡼࡱࢄሻȀሺ‫݈ܻ݀݁݅ݕ݃ݎ݁݊ܧ‬ሻ
‫ ܧ݋ܥܮ‬ൌ  σଶ଴ଵ ሺ‫ܥ‬௜ Ȁሺͳ ൅ ‫ݎ‬ሻ
௜ିଵ ሻȀሺ‫ܧ‬
௜ Ȁሺͳ ൅ ‫ݎ‬ሻ
௜ିଵ ሻ
(2)
If the discount rate is set to zero, then the calculated CoE
and LCoE values will be equal. Based on the Equation (1), the
cost of energy can be reduced by decreasing capital (CAPEX)
and operational (OPEX) expenditures and/or increasing the
energy yield or Captured power. Reducing CAPEX, while
maintaining the reliability level, and increasing the energy
yield, while maintaining the CAPEX, are studied in several
European and international projects. The focus of this paper is
reduction of OPEX by means of advanced O&M models.
2 STATE OF THE ART
Due to the harsh offshore climate, limited accessibility to
the wind farms during cold seasons and expensive offshore
vessels, O&M costs of offshore wind farms are much higher
than onshore ones. During the past two decades, several O&M
models for offshore wind farms have been developed. The two
main applications of offshore wind O&M models are O&M
cost estimation and O&M strategy optimization, which are
discussed further in the following sections.
2.1 O&M cost estimators
During the tendering phase of an offshore wind farm, the
asset owner should estimate the LCoE produced by the
planned offshore wind farm. Therefore, a good estimation of
the total OPEX during the lifetime of the planned offshore
wind farm, as well as the total CAPEX and energy yield is
required. Typically there are two types of O&M cost
estimators available, deterministic models and stochastic
models.
2.1.1 Deterministic O&M cost estimators
Deterministic O&M models calculate long-term averaged
O&M costs and downtime over the lifetime of an offshore
wind farm. In other words, it is not particularly important
when exactly in the lifetime of the wind farm a failure
happens.
The ECN O&M Tool [1] is a deterministic Excel based
O&M cost estimator developed by Energy research Centre of
the Netherlands (ECN) in 2003. The ECN O&M Tool known
(1) as the industry standard for O&M modelling is used for initial
O&M cost estimation for the majority of European offshore
wind farms.
The inputs for this tool are wind farm specifications, long-
term met-ocean data of the wind farm location, maintenance
strategy, failure rates of different wind farm components and
offshore maintenance vessels. The input data are typically
defined based on the user’s experience and observations from
similar operational offshore wind farms.
Using the long-term met-ocean data, the tool first
calculates averaged waiting time per season plots for different
weather windows (estimated required time for different types
of inspection, repair or replacement) and weather restrictions
(offshore vessel’s operational restrictions).
An example of the calculated waiting time plots using
ECN O&M Tool is provided in Figure 1. For instance, on
average it takes 125 hours of waiting time to have a 30 hour

‹,(((
weather window with wind speed less than 12 m/s and
significant wave height less than 1.5 meters, based on 11 years
of FINO3-NORA10 met-ocean data. In other words, it means
that to finalize a 30 hour long unplanned corrective
maintenance activity, the turbine with the failed component
should be down for 155 (=125+30) hours.
Therefore, besides the primary maintenance costs,
revenue losses caused by the wind turbine downtime should be
accounted for as O&M costs. While, preventive maintenance
actions have much less wind turbine downtime, since they can
be planned in advance and the wind turbine can be kept
running until a suitable weather window is found. In section 3,
a case study using ECN O&M Tool is presented.
Figure 1. Sample waiting time plot calculated by the ECN
O&M Tool where a third order polynomial is fitted to the
average waiting times calculated from the met-ocean data.
2.1.2 Stochastic O&M cost estimators
In a stochastic O&M cost estimator, component failures
are randomly generated over the whole lifetime of the wind
farm by e.g. a Poisson process. Then, using waiting time plots
or historical met-ocean data for the exact period of the year,
the downtime and maintenance costs are calculated.
Typically the described process is repeated for a specified
number of Monte Carlo simulations. Afterwards, the mean and
standard deviation from the all simulation results are reported
as the output.
In recent years several Monte Carlo based O&M cost
estimators have been developed, which all follow the same
logic as described above, but with different levels of detail in
the modelling of logistics and maintenance strategy. In [2] a
case study for stochastic O&M cost estimation of the Rhyl
Flats offshore wind farm in the UK using ECN O&M
Calculator is given. In [3] a case study using NOWIcob, UiS,
Strathclyde CDT and ECUME O&M models is presented.
2.2 O&M strategy optimizers
During the operational years of an offshore wind farm, the
initial maintenance strategy can be updated and optimized to
reduce the O&M costs for coming years. This can be done
using an O&M optimizer. In an O&M optimizer:
x Input data for the model are defined based on all available
wind farm operational data such as SCADA data,
maintenance logs, monitoring data and inspection reports.
x Instead of only reporting the average costs and downtime,
the output of the model is the optimal maintenance
strategy to achieve the lowest O&M costs, given all
available information.
To date, several O&M cost estimators were further
developed to function as an O&M optimizer, but those models
failed to take into account all available operational data and to
update the maintenance strategy throughout the lifetime.
In the next section, a case study for O&M cost estimation
of an 800 MW reference offshore wind farm is given.
Following the case study, in section 4, the framework for an
ideal O&M optimizer is described.
3 CASE STUDY
In this case study, the O&M costs of a 800 MW offshore
wind farm using ECN O&M Tool are estimated. In the
following sections, first the input data are described and then
the study results are given.
3.1 Reference wind farm
In 2015, an 800 MW reference wind farm was defined
within the NORCOWE project. As shown in Figure 2, the
reference wind farm is located in the North Sea approximately
80 km from the coast of Denmark. On the west side of the
wind farm, is where Sylt island and Esbjerg harbor are
located, which both can be used as maintenance bases for the
wind farm.
Figure 2. The location of the reference wind farm used in this
case study [Google].
The wind farm consists of 80 DTU 10 MW reference
wind turbines, with 119 meters hub height and 178 meters
rotor diameter. The cut-in wind speed of the turbines is 4 m/s,
the rated wind speed is 12 m/s and the cut-off wind speed is 25
m/s.
The water depth in the wind farm varies between 20 to 25
meters, therefore, monopile foundation is used to support the
wind turbines. Two offshore substations installed on jacket
foundations are placed in the wind farm, each connected to 40
wind turbines. The offshore substations transfer the produced
electricity of the turbines to an onshore substation using high per each component system and maintenance category is given
voltage cables placed in the seabed. in Table 2.
The FINO3 offshore meteorological mast is located in the For example, it is assumed that rotor system components,
vicinity of the reference wind farm. Therefore, using the such as blades and the pitch system, on average have one
FNIO3 measurements, 11 years of wind and wave data, maintenance event per year per wind turbine. Then, the
derived from the NORA10 model of Norwegian breakdown of this one event per each maintenance category is
meteorological institute (met.no), is used as the input met- given. As seen in Table 2, during the lifetime of a wind
ocean data. The average wind speed at the site is 10 m/s at 100 turbine, 10% of the time, maintenance events of the rotor
meter height and the average significant wave height is 1.7 system components are inspections, 60% of the time, events
meters. A sample of waiting time plots calculated using the are minor corrective maintenance actions and so on.
met-ocean data is illustrated in the Figure 1.
Table 2. Number of events per year, per each wind turbine
3.2 Maintenance categories component system and per each maintenance category.
In this case study, five maintenance categories are defined No of Maintenance category
Component
to model the inspection, corrective and preventive events 1 2 3 4 5
maintenance actions. Inspections and minor maintenance Rotor system 1.0 10% 60% 20% 5% 5%
actions are performed by 3 technicians using one of the 3 Nacelle system 0.7 - 90% - 10% -
workboats owned by the wind farm. Major maintenance Drivetrain sys. 0.3 15% 50% 10% 20% 5%
actions are performed by 6 technicians using a leased jack-up Control system 2.0 10% 60% 30% - -
barge with two weeks logistics time. The cost of spare parts Power system 1.0 10% 60% 20% 5% 5%
used in each maintenance activity is given as a percentage of
the total wind turbine price, which is assumed to be 1,250 It can be observed that the majority of events are
€/kW. More information about each maintenance category is unplanned corrective maintenance actions and the rest are
given in Table 1. planned inspection and preventive maintenance actions to
Table 1. Maintenance categories of the reference wind farm avoid sudden component failures. Health monitoring is not
where T_org is the organization time to arrange the considered in this case study.
maintenance, T_log is the logistics time of vessels and T_job is 3.4 Case study results
the actual duration of the maintenance performed offshore at
the location of the wind turbine. As a result of the calculations done by the ECN O&M
Tool, it is estimated that on average each year direct costs of
# Category T_org T_log T_job Crew Spares all maintenance events in this 800 MW reference wind farm
1 Inspection 2h 0 4h 3 0% are about 61.3 M€ and revenue losses due to production losses
2 Minor corr. 6h 0 8h 3 0.2 % are about 10.3 M€, making a cumulative sum of 71.6 M€
3 Minor prev. 6h 0 8h 3 0.1 % accounting for the total yearly averaged O&M cost of the
4 Major corr. 24 h 336 h 40 h 6 10 % whole wind farm. The revenue loss due to the lost production
5 Major prev. 16 h 0 24 h 6 5% is calculated assuming the electricity price is equal to 0.1
€/kWh fixed during the 20 year lifetime of the reference wind
The maintenance activities are all performed by 15 farm.
employed technicians of the farm, with 10 hour working days In Figure 3 the breakdown of the yearly total O&M cost
during cold seasons and 12 hour working days during warm per system component is shown. As seen in the Figure 3,
seasons. During major maintenance activities, technicians are revenue losses, offshore vessels and spare parts are the main
working in two, 12 hour shifts to finalize the job as soon as contributors to the total O&M costs, while labor costs are not
possible and reduce expensive leasing costs of the jack-up a considerable amount compared to them.
barge. Similar breakdown can be drawn for downtime per
As discussed, inspections and preventive maintenance system component. In the following subsections time-based
actions are planned in advance and therefore, no waiting time availability and production-based availability are calculated.
for a suitable weather window is assumed for them. However, Typically terms of the O&M guaranty contract of the offshore
corrective maintenance actions are unplanned and their wind farms are drawn using these two parameters.
waiting time should be calculated using waiting time plots, as
3.4.1 Time based availability
shown in the Figure 1.
Time based availability is defined as the percentage of
3.3 Maintenance events
time per year that a wind turbine is available to produce
In this case study, 5 main wind turbine component groups power, i.e. not down for maintenance events. In the IEC
are considered and the balance of plant components are left 61400-26-1:2011 [4] more detailed definition of time based
out. It is assumed that each wind turbine, on average, has 5 availability of wind turbine generating systems is given.
maintenance events per year. The breakdown of these events Based on the calculations of this case study, on average
each wind turbine is down 501.9 hours per year for the defined
maintenance events in Tables 1 and 2. Therefore, the time
based availability for each wind turbine on average is:
ܶ‫ ܣܤ‬ൌ ͳ െ ሾͷͲͳǤͻȀሺ͵͸ͷ ൈ ʹͶሻሿ ൌ ͲǤͻͶʹ͹ ൎ ͻͶǤ͵Ψ (3)
Equation (3) can also be calculated based on the total
downtime for the whole wind farm, which in this case study
will result in the same number.
Figure 3. Breakdown of the yearly total O&M cost per wind
turbine components of the reference wind farm.
3.4.2Production based availability
Production based availability is defined as actual
production per turbine per year divided by the potential
production per turbine per year, i.e. if the turbine wasn’t down
for maintenance events, given the same wind data. In IEC
61400-26-2:2014 [5] a more detailed definition of production
based availability of wind turbines is given.
Based on the input met-ocean data, in theory, each wind
turbine can produce about 38 GWh per year. Because of the
downtime of maintenance events, each year about 1.3 GWh of
the potential production is lost per wind turbine. Therefore, the
production based availability of each wind turbine on average
is:
ܲ‫ ܣܤ‬ൌ ͳ െ ሾͳǤ͵Ȁ͵ͺሿ ൌ ͲǤͻ͸ͷͺ ൎ ͻ͸Ǥ͸Ψ (4)
Equation (4) can also be calculated based on the total
production loss for the whole wind farm, which in this case
study will result in the same number.
3.4.3 Summary of results
A summary of key results of O&M cost estimation of this
800 MW reference offshore wind farm is given in Table 3. If
capital costs and yearly discount rate are known, the total
O&M costs and power production calculated in this case study
can be used in Equation (2) to calculate the LCoE.
In this case study, inspections and preventive maintenance
actions were used in the maintenance strategy of the farm, but
still a majority of the total 71.6 M€ O&M cost is caused by
unplanned corrective maintenance actions. The level of detail
in this case study is adequate for LCoE calculation during the
development phase of an offshore wind farm. However,
during the operational years of the wind farm, a dedicated
O&M strategy optimizer should be used to determine the
optimal inspection, monitoring and preventive plans to
minimize the total O&M costs, given all the information
available at the time of decision making. The framework for
an ideal O&M optimizer is discussed in the next section.
Table 3. Summary of key results of O&M cost estimation of an
800 MW reference offshore wind farm
Unit Turbine Wind farm
Maintenance costs M€ 0.77 61.3
Maintenance downtime h 501.9 40,153
Actual production GWh 38 3,041
Lost production GWh 1.3 103
Revenue loss M€ 0.13 10.3
Total O&M costs M€ 0.9 71.6
4 FRAMEWORK FOR AN IDEAL O&M OPTIMIZER
An ideal O&M strategy optimizer for offshore wind farms
takes into account all SCADA data, maintenance logs, health
monitoring data and supports the wind farm operations in
making optimal maintenance decisions. The main modules of
such an ideal O&M optimizer are:
x Reliability model: to model health state of structural,
mechanical and electrical wind farm components relevant
for maintenance modelling. The model should be updated
throughout the lifetime using SCADA, inspection and
monitoring data, as soon as they are available.
x Decision model: use risk and reliability based decision
rules to model the actual maintenance decisions as
accurate as possible. The model should be updated if a
new decision rule results in lower total O&M costs.
x Cost model: a stochastic model to calculate total O&M
costs based on the reliability and decision models.
x Outcome: optimal maintenance strategy for inspection,
monitoring and maintenance planning.
4.1 Reliability model
The reliability model can be based on a simple bathtub
curve for electrical components, a discrete degradation
function for mechanical components or a continuous
deterioration curve for structural components.
Figure 4. Sample initial and updated deterioration models of a wind
turbine blade.
A sample deterioration curve for a structural component is
shown in Figure 4. If no new data such as inspection is
available, the failure probability of the component follows the
top curve. If at time t 1 an inspection is performed and new
information about the damage state of the component is
available, then the previous deterioration model can be
updated using posterior Bayesian updating, as shown in
Equations (5) and (6).
ܲி ሺ‫ݐ‬ሻ ൌ ܲሺ‫ܨ‬௧ ሻ (5)
ܲி௎ ሺ‫ݐ‬ሻ ൌ ܲሺ‫ܨ‬௧ ȁሼ‫ܦ‬௧ଵ ൌ ݀௧ଵ ሽሻ (6)
ൌ ܲሺ‫ܨ‬௧ ‫ ת‬ሼ‫ܦ‬௧ଵ ൌ ݀௧ଵ ሽሻ ܲሺሼ‫ܦ‬௧ଵ ൌ ݀௧ଵ ሽሻ
™Š‡”‡
ܲி ሺ‫ݐ‬ሻǣProbability of failure in the time interval [0,t]
ܲி௎ ሺ‫ݐ‬ሻǣUpdated probability of failure in the time interval [0,t]
‫ܨ‬௧ ǣEvent that the component fails in the time interval [0,t]
ሼ‫ܦ‬௧ଵ ൌ ݀௧ଵ ሽǣ Event that the (stochastic) deterioration D is ݀௧ଵ
at time t 1

Figure 4. Sample initial and updated deterioration models of a
wind turbine blade.
In this example, using the new information in a Bayesian
way, it can be concluded that the component is not degrading
as was estimated initially or vice versa.
4.2 Decision model
In [6] a framework for a risk based decision model for
O&M planning of offshore wind farms is introduced based a
on pre-posterior Bayesian model.
Figure 5. Framework of a risk based decision model for O&M
planning for offshore wind farms [6].
As shown in Figure 5, for each time step (e.g. each day,
week, month or year) during the lifetime of an offshore wind
farm, many different decisions can be made for the planning
of inspection, health monitoring and preventive activities.
As result of the inspection, monitoring data and
maintenance logs, many different strategies can be selected, in
which each one of them can result in a different state of
outcome. Implementation of such a system for an offshore
wind farm, with multiple wind turbines and balance of plant
components would lead to an extremely gigantic decision tree.
Therefore, smart decision rules and criteria should be applied
to simplify the decision tree to a manageable size for fast
processing and decision making. This is done using a risk and
reliability based decision model.
4.3 Cost model
In a cost model all associated costs with inspections,
monitoring, maintenance activities and revenue losses due to
wind turbine down times are calculated. For each possible
inspection, monitoring and preventive maintenance plan in the
decision tree, the cost model should be executed. Then, it is
possible to easily determine the optimal O&M strategy to keep
the costs to a minimum.
In Figure 6, selection of an optimal O&M strategy based
on the lowest total O&M cost is illustrated. The resulting
optimal maintenance strategy includes optimal inspection,
monitoring and preventive effort plans.
4.4 Output
The outcome of an ideal O&M optimizer is the optimal
planning of inspection, monitoring and preventive efforts to
keep the total O&M cost to a minimum, given all the
information available at the time of decision making.
4.4.1 Optimal inspection plan
Offshore wind farms are scheduled for one or two
inspections per year, as set by the wind turbine manufacturer.
More frequent inspections can reduce the unplanned failures
and lead to lower O&M cost. It is possible to plan more
frequent inspections based on fixed time intervals or a target
reliability threshold. Moreover, inspection data from one wind
turbine can be used to estimate the state of other wind
turbines. This method requires detailed probabilistic modelling
of the wind farm, including all structural loads, strengths,
models and system effects.
The optimal inspection plan can be determined using an
O&M strategy optimizer. If inspections are planned based on
fixed time intervals (e.g. each six months), due to the rapid
crack growth of components before the failure point, sudden
failures can still be observed. However, if inspections are
planned based on a reliability threshold and using proper
reliability models, the unplanned failures can be significantly
reduced.
4.4.2 Optimal monitoring plan
Health monitoring systems of offshore wind components
are expensive and processing of collected monitoring data is
labor-intensive. Therefore, as shown in Figure 6, it is not
beneficial to equip all components and all turbines with health
monitoring systems and instead, the optimal monitoring plan
can be used. Moreover, similar to the inspection plan, health
monitoring data from one component in a wind turbine can be
used to estimate the state of other components in other wind
turbines. Similarly, this method requires detailed modelling of
the wind farm, including all structural loads, strengths and
system effects.
The optimal monitoring plan is achieved by calculating
the value of information for each monitoring plan. The value
of information is simply the total cost when monitoring is in
place subtracted by the total cost when no monitoring is used.

Figure 6. Optimal selection of maintenance strategy based on
the lowest O&M costs
4.4.3 Optimal preventive plan
The optimal preventive plan is calculated from the
collected inspection and monitoring data using an O&M
optimizer. The inspection data can be used to monitor the
degradation process of components and plan long-term
preventive actions to prevent their unplanned failures.
Similarly, monitoring data can be used to detect sudden
malfunctions in component behavior, which were not detected
during planned inspections. Consequently, short-term
preventive actions can be planned to prevent immediate
failures of monitored components.
5 CONCLUSIONS
The state of the art in O&M cost estimation of offshore
wind farms was discussed and a case study for an 800 MW
offshore wind farm was demonstrated. In order to reduce the
operational costs, a framework for an ideal risk and reliability
based O&M strategy optimizer was described. Reliability, cost
and decision models for such an optimizer should be further
developed in future studies. The reference wind farm defined
in this paper can be used to perform similar case studies for
comparison and validation of developed O&M optimizers.
AKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work is made possible by support from the Aalborg
University of Denmark (AAU), the Energy research Centre of
the Netherlands (ECN) and the Norwegian Centre for
Offshore Wind Energy (NORCOWE). NORCOWE, under
grant 193821/S60 from Research Council of Norway, is a
consortium with partners from industry and science, hosted by
Christian Michelsen Research.
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BIOGRAPHIES
Masoud Asgarpour
Aalborg University & ECN
Westerduinweg 3
1755LE Petten, The Netherlands
E-mails: mas@civil.aau.dk – asgarpour@ecn.nl
Mr. Asgarpour is an offshore wind O&M advisor at ECN. He
studied mechanical engineering and wind energy as his
bachelor and master studies. Parallel to his work at ECN,
currently he is also an industrial doctoral research fellow at
civil engineering department of Aalborg University in
Denmark working on risk and reliability based O&M models.
John Dalsgaard Sørensen
Aalborg University
Sofiendalsvej 11
9200 Aalborg SV, Denmark
E-mail: jds@civil.aau.dk
Professor John Dalsgaard Sørensen is the head of Wind
Energy Systems and Technologies (WEST) group at Aalborg
University in Denmark, and is noted for his research on
structural reliability and wind energy systems.