Increasing accessibility by implementing the far offshore transfer vessel: a systems engineering approach

Abstract

The accessibility in far offshore wind farms during unplanned maintenance is reported to be insufficient. This system largely consists of daughter craft, small vessels that increase the multitasking capabilities of an SOV. The goal of this research is to improve the accessibility to ultimately increase turbine availability, which is proven in this work to be necessary. The research is carried out in cooperation with Siemens Gamesa, a major wind turbine supplier. This research builds off the basis laid by Brans et al., who applied a needs analysis on the daughter craft system. This research applies the next step in the systems engineering sequence: concept exploration. The scope of this research extends beyond that of the daughter craft to any system that can improve the unplanned maintenance of far offshore wind farms.

Because the subject matter is relatively little covered in the scientific field, this research lays great emphasis on the context of the problem. The status quo of the sector is described in terms of equipment, operations, regulations, forms of limitations, financial context, trends, and different stages performed in unplanned maintenance. By performing an analysis of alternatives a high potential for system improvement is found.

A set of performance requirements for the accessibility system is developed to structurally assess the system and possible improvements. These performance requirements are used to determine which alternative system holds the most potential for accessibility improvement. Increasing daughter craft dimensions is chosen as the most potent alternative. A feasibility study is performed on deploying CTV-sized vessels far-offshore for two weeks thereby significantly reducing transfer time and distance. These vessels are called far-offshore transfer vessels (FOTV).
Different configurations are tested for storing the FOTVs far-offshore when not in operation and interfacing with the SOV. Two principal concepts are identified: Enlarged daughter craft, where the FOTV is stored on the SOV, and the exposed principals, where the FOTV remains in the water. One configuration of the enlarged daughter craft principal is deemed feasible: The lifting launch configuration. Two configurations of the exposed principal are deemed feasible: The connected to the SOV configuration and the moored to designated platform configuration. Furthermore, a model is constructed to assess the logistic and economic merit of different combinations of FOTV, wind farm, and configuration.

This research concludes that the deployment of a FOTV combined with a lifting launch configuration is most profitable for any wind farm. Nonetheless, the exposed principal concepts outperform the current system significantly. The choice of FOTV depends mainly on the accessibility performance and day rate of the vessel but also on the wind farm. The model predicts that in the current market, the highest-performing CTVs are the most profitable options for FOTV deployment. Finally, the results show that the effects of improving accessibility vessel performance relates inverse exponentially to profit performance.