Optimising O&M scheduling in offshore wind farms considering weather forecast uncertainty and wake losses

Offshore wind farms, while strategically positioned to maximise wind energy capture, are exposed to harsh environments, impacting their reliability and accessibility. Low reliability and accessibility in turn translate into high Operation and Maintenance (O&M) costs, which represent approximately 30% of the total lifetime costs of the project. One approach to reduce O&M costs is to improve maintenance planning decisions. The present paper presents a novel O&M scheduling methodology for offshore wind farm operations based on wind and wave forecasts. The methodology forecasts farm yield considering farm wake effects to identify optimal operation schedules, vessel routing, and turbine maintenance sequences that minimise costs and revenue losses due to downtime. Weather forecast uncertainty is modelled and integrated into the decision-making process to minimise weather risks. A case study inspired by the WindFloat Atlantic floating wind project was used to demonstrate the optimisation potential. Results suggest that adopting the proposed methodology over business-as-usual scheduling significantly boosts offshore wind farm operational profits during the forecasted period, with increases ranging from 2% to 24%, depending on the scenario considered. It was found that integrating the wind farm wake losses into the scheduling decisions can improve the optimal scheduling solution and further minimise total operation costs.