| Summary: | There is a strong desire to increase the penetration of renewable energy sources in the UK electricity market. Offshore wind energy could be a method to achieve this. However, there are still issues, both technical and economical, that hinder the development and exploitation of this energy source. A condition based maintenance plan that relies on fully integrating the input from condition monitoring and structural health monitoring systems could be the method to solve many of these issues. Improved maintenance scheduling has the potential to reduce maintenance costs, increase energy production and reduce the overall cost of energy. While condition monitoring systems for gearboxes, generators and main bearings have become common place over the last few years, the deployment of other monitoring systems has been slower. This could be due to the expense and complication of monitoring an entire wind farm. Wind park operators, correctly, would like to see proof that their investment will be prudent. To assist wind park operators and owners with this decision, an offshore wind operations and maintenance model that attempts to model the impacts of using monitoring systems has been developed. The development of the model is shown in this analysis: multiple methodologies are used to capture deterioration and the abilities of monitoring systems. At each stage benchmarks are shown against other models and available data. This analysis has a breadth and scope not currently addressed in literature and attempts to give insight to industry that was previously unavailable.
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