Asset maintenance optimization: The case-study of an offshore wind farm

Offshore wind farms are very expensive assets, not only to design and build, but also to operate and maintain. Their remote location, coupled with weather's constraints and harsh marine environment, and the lack of adapted access equipment, make their maintenance complicated and expensive due to high repair costs, high transportations costs and painful production losses due to high downtime. More generally, the offshore wind technology is in a stage of development where its economic worthiness has still to be fully demonstrated, and numerous projects are largely supported by governmental subsidies (European 2011). This lack of maturity is evident, for example, through the numerous reliability problems of wind turbines components. This article aim is to explain this industry challenges and a new technology that can help to reduce maintenance cost.