Opportunistic maintenance for offshore wind: A review and proposal of future framework

As new offshore wind development sites move further from shore and existing sites enter their post-subsidy operating period, it is expected that operational expenditure (OpEx) will increase. In order to overcome these challenges, a more flexible and cost-effective maintenance solution is needed. One such solution is opportunistic maintenance (OM). This work provides an overview of the maintenance strategy used within other industries before providing an in-depth review of the work specific to offshore wind. The existing literature fails to agree on the specific definition of the term. This work proposes an all-encompassing definition of the term, reviewing maintenance ‘opportunities’ and their corresponding ‘action/response’. The review found that maintenance opportunities are either internal or weather-based, with each opportunity having a pre-determined trigger/response. This work proposes the introduction of a market-based opportunity, which has not been previously considered. As offshore wind farms now face increasing curtailment and negative pricing threats, this new OM framework, OM+, view these periods as maintenance opportunities. OM+ also provides a new definition for recording and reporting availability — moving from time/energy-based availability to market-based availability.