Optimal chartering decisions for vessel fleet to support offshore wind farm maintenance operations

Offshore wind energy is expected to be the most significant source of future electricity supply in Europe. Offshore wind farms are located far from the shores, requiring a fleet of various types of vessels to access sites when maintaining offshore wind turbines. The employment of the vessels is costly, accounting for the majority of the total O&M costs for offshore wind energy. Therefore, configuring the size and mix of the vessel fleet to support maintenance operations in a cost-effective manner is an issue of importance to enhance economics of offshore wind sector. In this paper, a discrete event simulation based model is proposed to present how a mixed vessel fleet with the specific configuration, including crew transfer vessels, field support vessels, and heavy lift vessels, performs maintenance for an offshore wind farm. The economic performance of the vessel fleet under a predetermined condition-based opportunistic maintenance strategy is investigated by using the model. A metaheuristic algorithm, simulated annealing, is employed to find the optimal fleet size and mix to make leasing decisions with the minimum costs. The performance of the developed approaches is evaluated by using a generic offshore wind farm in the North Sea. The sensitivity analysis is performed to investigate the most influential O&M factors.

• Record URL:
  • https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceaneng.2024.117202
• Record URL:
  • http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0029801824005390
• Availability:
  • Find a library where document is available. Order URL: http://worldcat.org/issn/00298018
• Supplemental Notes:
  • © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Abstract reprinted with permission of Elsevier.
• Authors:
  • Li, Mingxin
  • 0000-0003-3835-1036
  • Bijvoet, Bas
  • Wu, Kangjie
  • Jiang, Xiaoli
  • 0000-0001-5165-4942
  • Negenborn, Rudy R
• Publication Date: 2024-4-15

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Web
• Features: References;
• Pagination: 117202
• Serial:
  • Ocean Engineering
  • Volume: 298
  • Issue Number: 0
  • Publisher: Pergamon
  • ISSN: 0029-8018
  • EISSN: 1873-5258
  • Serial URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00298018

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Chartering; Decision making; Maintenance; Merchant fleet operation; Offshore structures; Wind power generation
• Geographic Terms: North Sea
• Subject Areas: Maintenance and Preservation; Marine Transportation; Terminals and Facilities; Vehicles and Equipment;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01912322
• Record Type: Publication
• Files: TRIS
• Created Date: Mar 19 2024 3:18PM