Reducing wind energy cost through

O&M

• Money!

• From Tractors to Turbines

• What Drives the Cost

• Wind Turbines as Assets

• O&M as a cost lever

• Case studies

The Good News

Levelised cost of Energy =~ (CAPEX + OPEX) / MWh

The Caveats

Future Projects Predicated on:

• Further upscaling to 13MW

• Installation cost savings

• High Reliability

• O&M cost savings

Tractors to Turbines

Many key Turbine OEMS started

life as agri equipment vendorsEarly commercial machines

(late 1970s) – 0.2MW

Wind boom (early

2000s) – 0.5MW

BAU (now) – ~3MW

Offshore: Big is Beautiful

Offshore: is Big Beautiful?

DFIG (onshore)

Direct drive synchronous

Siemens 6-8MW DD

FRC medium speed gen

Vestas-MHI 7-9.5MW FRC

Carroll et al (2015) Reliability Comparison of Wind Turbines With DFIG,

and PMG Drive Trains. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON ENERGY CONVERSION, VOL. 30, NO. 2

Challenges in Wind O&M –

A very young operational fleet

Ownership Structure

• Developer builds everything• Then sells the OSP export cable, onshore sub to a 3rd party (OFTO)

https://www.slideshare.net/JustinHayward1/sgcp12-beelofgem

OSP

Challenges in Wind O&M - spatial

http://www.epaw.org/documents.php?lang=en&article=d5

• Wave Radars• Buoy• Anemometers (lots)• Big grid square NWP• Vessel motion

A set of non-homogenous, patchy & flawed spatial

measurements

Challenges in Wind O&M - OPEX

Legacy Equipment Challenge

Heavy lift challenge

Interfaces/ KPIs

OEM

CTV skipper

Offshore technicians

SafetyNumber of turbines restored

Safety

SafetyAvailabilityProduction Target/ YieldOPEX

Marine co-ordinator

Weather forecast (LINK)

Owner/ operator

Production/ OPEXUtility Share Price

Contracted KPIOEM Share Price

Accuracy metric

3RD Party CMS

Fault detection accuracyDowntime

Challenges in Wind O&M

.. And where research can help:

• Spatial/ Logistical

• Weather/ Scheduling

• Uncertainty (and what to do about it)

• Interfaces

• KPI (mis) alignment

• Planning (years) vs Operational

(days) timescales

The Prize – My Targets

aMaples et al (2013) Installation, Operation, and Maintenance Strategies to Reduce the Cost of Offshore Wind Energy, NREL http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/57403.pdf bBrowell et al (2016)Forecasting for day-ahead offshore maintenance scheduling under uncertainty. In: Proceedings of the European Safety and Reliability (ESREL) Conference

NREL: Circa £15m OPEX savings per operational wind farma

Strath: 0.3-0.5m Yield uplift per annumb

Decision Support for Offshore Wind

David McMillan• Translation of data & algorithm output into improved decisions• Solving the offshore work scheduling problem• Measuring uncertainty and using it to lower costs

ROMAX

WIND OPS - ONSHORE

Residual life estimation

1.Real options 2.Copulas3.Decision making under uncertainty

WIND OPS - OFFSHORE

Real world constrained decision-making

Visualisation of decision options

KPI impact of decisions fed direct to engineer

Lifting a Blade:

“Business as Usual”

Lifting a Blade:

“Business as Usual”

• Use average weather forecast to make blade lift scheduling decision• What day to schedule the lift?

Average forecast

Blade lift limit

Lifting a Blade:

Dealing with Uncertainty

• Can we use our knowledge of forecast errors to make a better decision?• Link key decision points and present ‘real options’

Blade lift limit

Forecast Uncertainty

The Scheduling Challenge

Inputs

Weather Forecast Weather Scenarios

• Probabilistic forecast (GFS/NOAA) produced as required for scenario generation

• Forecast errors sampled from statistical model, captures forecast uncertainty

Average forecast

Actuals

Blade lift limit

The Decision-Maker

• Technician KPI– Job Completion

– Downtime

Simple decision

• Budget holder KPI– OPEX reduction

– Yield increase

Detailed decision

Outputs – Simple Decision

• KPI: Job Completion

Outputs – Detailed Decision

Similar Expected Cost

Net-costCost Increase Cost Reduction

• KPI: OPEX Reduction

Different Risk

“10% chance net-cost > x”

Innovate: Project outcomes

• Delivered model front end - http://wind.datasmarthub.eu/

• Tool used to support blade lifts @Whitelee summer 2017

• Romax (Now Onyx Insight) sponsored one follow on 3yr KTP, developing a second

• Paper.. WIP

http://onyxinsight.com/

Improved Access Forecasting: ORACLES

The pressure to achieve increased access to turbines implies a greater number of marginal-weather

transfers, which carry a greater safety risk.

https://www.offshorewind.biz/2018/03/06/jfms-to-help-oracles-with-safe-crew-transfer-vision/?utm_source=emark&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-update-offshore-wind-2018-03-07&uid=57246

Lets talk about Optimisation

“The gap between academic models and application in a business specific context is still the biggest problem encountered in the field of maintenance optimization.” [1]

"Many of the works have been published for mathematical purposes, whereas only very few number of industrial cases (∼6% of the total publications) have been presented.” [2]

"There is, however, a sense that several of the most successful metaheuristics are over-engineered and one should now attempt to produce simple and more flexible algorithms capable of handling a larger variety of constraints, even if this were to translate into a small loss in accuracy." [3]

[1] A. Van Horenbeek, L. Pintelon, and P. Muchiri, “Maintenance optimization models and criteria,” Int. J. Syst. Assur. Eng. Manag., vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 189–200, 2010.

[2] M. Shafiee and J. D. Sørensen, “Maintenance optimization and inspection planning of wind energy assets: Models, methods and strategies,” Reliab. Eng. Syst. Saf., vol. 0, pp. 1–19, 2017.[3] G. Laporte, “Fifty Years of Vehicle Routing,” J. Transp. Sci., vol. 43, pp. 408–416, 2009.

Improved Vessel dispatch (1)

Improved Vessel dispatch (2)

• Uncertain diagnosis• Uncertain MTTR• Effect of this on order/ schedule?

Improved Vessel dispatch (3)

• Supergen R4 follow on with M Shafiee Summer 2018

https://www.supergen-wind.org.uk/funding/round-4-winners

Conclusions – Specific & General

• Lots of cost reduction potential for offshore wind (10s of £m)• OPEX savings can be accrued from day 1 of operation• No dependence on OEMs to achieve it• Work across interfaces and boundaries – join things up!

• To achieve it – understand the limits of decision making• Pragmatic approach – always talk to the decision makers before starting (Techs, CEOs)• Take account of reality, including the need to take people with you