According to a white paper released by Shoreline Wind, with the offshore wind industry deploying scaled-up turbines, new O&M challenges threaten to undermine profitability, efficiency and safety in the sector.
The paper, “Robust O&M Plans Boost the Profitability of Offshore Wind Farms,” describes turbine size swelling from 2 MW versions in 2000 to potentially over 20 MW by 2030. At the same time, an aging fleet of wind farms now require either repowering or intelligently modified O&M strategies, adding layers of complexity to their ongoing viability.
“The industry is at a crossroads. Larger turbines have increased energy production and reduced costs, but they’ve also introduced new O&M risks,” says Michael Bjerrum, CCO and co-founder at Shoreline Wind.
“A single failure in these larger turbines can lead to significant downtime and financial loss, an issue already seen in onshore, and now emerging offshore. Combined with aging assets, the need to review and update offshore O&M strategies is more vital than ever.”
The white paper explores how larger turbines require a more sophisticated approach to O&M as well as managing balance of plant, including maintenance of larger foundations, offshore substations and cables.
Additionally, 8 GW of offshore wind farms are now more than a decade old, a figure the paper says is expected to triple in the next four years. Asset owners need tailored O&M plans to cope with the issues experienced by older machines.
Considering these twofold challenges, the paper advocates for early and proactive O&M planning.
