The Operation and Maintenance Model for Cost
Estimation of an Offshore Wind Farm
GRADUATE SCHOOL
JEJU NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
Jae-Hee Park
A THESIS
FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ENGINEERING
Abstract
Several European countries have defined targets to install and to operate
offshore wind energy and according to these targets more than 40 GW offshore wind
power is expected for the year 2020. Republic of Korea has also defined targets to install
and operate offshore wind energy as part of its renewable energy goals. According to its
targets, more than 2.5 GW offshore wind power is expected to be installed across Jeju
island region and the west side of mainland by the year 2020. So the required effort for
operation and maintenance of offshore wind farms will be enormous, also a thorough
and appropriate plan of maintenance during the lifetime of these offshore wind turbines
is essential for an economical exploitation.
The aim of this thesis is to develop operation and maintenance model for an
offshore wind farm in Rep. of Korea considering regional marine situation. The model
should include both preventive and corrective maintenance plans which needs basic
concept of wind energy, wind turbine, and maintenance strategies. The model should be
based on real time metrological data, geographic data, generic wind turbine data,
equipment data, spare parts and repair data. A 10 minute time series of wind speed data
in public water surfaces of Daejeong-eup and 1 hourly time series of Marado significant
wave height data in 2010 are used for metrological data. Equipment data is based on
vessels of the operating offshore wind farm in the North Sea. Spare parts are modeled
from commercial wind turbine components contribution and costs. To define repair data,
there are various categories and step to determine the sequence of maintenance phases,
and the corresponding amount of work, required equipment and time to organize an each
maintenance phase.
The operation and maintenance costs are estimated for one year in order to verify
the model. A plan of operation and maintenance is set up for offshore wind farm in Jeju
Island, Rep. of Korea. The results show that availability of Jeju wind farm is around
90 %. The sum of revenue losses and the total costs of repair is estimated to be
approximately 27 % of generation cost which includes 11 % of the total generation cost
due to limited equipment usage and 9 % of the total generation cost due to revenue
losses for one year in the offshore wind farm. The proposed model can be used for the
analysis of different aspects that include overall contributions and costs of operation and
maintenance and to make an operation and maintenance support organization and plan
for offshore wind farm in Rep. of Korea.
