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A stochastic fleet size and mix model for maintenance operations at offshore wind farms

Abstract

A fleet of vessels and helicopters is needed to support maintenance operations at offshore wind farms. The cost of this fleet constitutes a major part of the total maintenance costs, hence keeping an optimal or near-optimal fleet is essential to reduce the cost of energy. In this paper we study the vessel fleet size and mix problem that arises for the maintenance operations at offshore wind farms, and propose a stochastic three-stage programming model. The stochastic model considers uncertainty in vessel spot rates, weather conditions, electricity prices and failures to the system. The model is tested on realistic-sized problem instances, and the results show that it is valuable to consider uncertainty and that the proposed model can be used to solve instances of a realistic size.

Category

Academic article

Language

English

Author(s)

Affiliation

  • SINTEF Ocean / Energi og transport
  • Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Year

2015

Published in

Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies

ISSN

0968-090X

Volume

52

Page(s)

74 - 92

View this publication at Norwegian Research Information Repository