Trans RINA, Vol 157, Part C1, Intl J Marine Design, Jan - Dec 2015
MODELLING OF SUPPORT SYSTEMS FOR OFFSHORE WIND FARMS (DOI No. 103940/rina.ijmd.2015.c1.44)
E Muk-Pavic, R Pawling, and A Salha, University College London, UK SUMMARY
With projected expansion of the offshore renewable energy sector, in terms of capacity (individual machine ratings and overall array size), depth and distance from shore, the development of effective support strategies that are appropriate to the array under consideration becomes more difficult. Recent research at UCL led to the production of a tool for modelling different Operation and Maintenance strategies for offshore windfarms. Developed in a 6 month MSc project, the Matlab model incorporated a range of input parameters such as array location, configuration and equipment reliability and developed a maintenance strategy utilising a choice of vessels. The model was validated by comparison with available data, with good correlation. Ongoing work is examining the use of the UCL developed Design Building Block approach to design Wind Farm Support Vessels, and to integrate the ship design models with the O&M model to allow an integrated analysis approach.
1. INTRODUCTION
The Marine Research Group (MRG) is a division of the University College London (UCL) Department of Mechanical Engineering [1]. In addition to providing postgraduate education in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering, the group has a range of research activities, including; design methods and tools; multihulls and novel
hullforms; electric propulsion; efficiency and
emissions reduction; unmanned vehicles and their use in maritime systems; safety and risk based design; and CFD.
Although the majority of the work in the MRG is
oriented towards naval vessels and submarines, there is particular interest in key areas of civilian vessel design, specifically emissions reduction, safety, novel designs and design methods for service vessels. This paper describes an ongoing research area incorporating several of these interests.
2. OVERVIEW OF THE OFFSHORE WIND FARM SECTOR AND FUTURE TRENDS
Offshore wind farms development started in 1990 and therefore is relatively young, rapidly growing, industry sector. As of the 30th June 2013, 1,939 offshore wind turbines, with a combined capacity of 6,040 MW, were grid connected in European waters in 58 wind farms across 10 countries. Currently, an additional 18 offshore wind farms are under development, planned to be fully integrated in the grid by the end of 2015 [2]. Significant capacities are developed around the word with recent initiative in United States on the rise.
The United Kingdom is the world’s sixth largest
producer of wind power. In July 2009, the low carbon transition plan was decided by the British government to achieve targets of 40% low carbon fuels and 20% renewable energy in electricity generation by 2020. Since
The production costs will need to be lowered
significantly for the offshore find farm sector to become competitive with other energy sectors. In order to reduce associated risks and electricity
production costs,
technical advances in technologies are required, not only for main components (turbine generators, foundations, grid) but along the entire supply chain requiring novel approaches to achieve the development target. This challenge has triggered
significant research and
development on the management and planning side, looking for new financial models, planning, logistics solutions and operations and maintenance.
The more reliable systems are required followed with well-planned and efficient operation and maintenance that will maximise wind farm operability. There is even higher level of uncertainty in trying to estimate future electricity production cost from offshore wind farms (see Figure 1).
As the offshore wind farm industry developed from on- shore wind farms, moving to coastal waters at first and consequently further offshore, the consequences of the shift from shore to sea were not fully anticipated and unexpected failures were experienced. In the early stages of the offshore wind farm sector the common practice was that when a failure occurred, an operation was launched to
correct the maintenance strategy). failure (i.e. failure-based
2000, five development rounds have been agreed to increase the amount of wind energy in the UK energy mix. In June 2008, the Crown Estate launched the Round 3 of sites allocations. While sites allocated in Rounds 1&2 had a production capacity of 8 GW total, the Round 3 is planned to provide additional 25 GW. This step- change in find farm capacity presents a significant but welcomed challenge for this young industry sector.
© 2015: The Royal Institution of Naval Architects
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