An optimal integrated production and maintenance strategy for a multi-wind turbines system

Abstract

This paper presents an optimal integrated production and maintenance strategy for a wind farm. A cost model is developed in order to determine sequentially the optimal plan of energy production characterised by the number of working wind turbines and their production rates, and the optimal preventive maintenance policy to be adopted. We model the relationship between the variation of energy production rates and the failure rate of the wind turbines. A numerical example and a sensitivity analysis are presented and the obtained results are discussed.