Estimating costs of operation & maintenance for offshore wind farms

Estimating costs of operation & maintenance for offshore wind farms

By Obdam, T.S.; Rademakers, L.W.M.M.; Braam, H. and Eecen, P.J. for the Energy reseach Centre of the Netherlands (ECN), January 2008

The operation and maintenance (O&M) costs of offshore wind farms contribute significantly to the energy generation costs. Reliable estimates of these costs are required during planning and operation of the wind farm at several stages. Such estimates however have a large spread and are uncertain. ECN is developing the O&M Cost Estimator (OMCE) with which owners and operators of offshore wind farms are able to better estimate and control the future O&M costs for the next coming 1 to 5 years.

The OMCE uses data and experience generated by the wind farm under consideration during the first years of operation. The OMCE consists of so called ‘OMCE Building Blocks’ in which large amounts of data generated by the wind farm, such as O&M data, data from SCADA systems, or data from (load) measurements and condition monitoring are being processed into useful information. The core of the OMCE consists of the so called ‘OMCE-Calculator’ which uses the output of the building blocks to make cost estimates for the next 1, 2, or 5 years.

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