Inventory proposal for monopiles in offshore wind farms

Abstract

The growth of offshore wind over the next decade will be significant. Reducing operation and maintenance (O&M) costs will be a key aspect to ensure its sustainable development. The foundation is the most important structural element, and it is essential to ensure its proper function. To achieve this objective, it is important to consider the optimal maintenance plan to reduce costs and prioritise available resources during service lifetime. The inventory is the basis of any maintenance strategy.This article analyses the problems of maintenance of monopiles, as this is the most widely used foundation type in offshore wind farms (around 80%). Its failure rate, and several examples of inventory in other kind of infrastructures have been studied. In parallel with this analysis, a breakdown of the monopiles is carried out, identifying all their structural and functional elements, in order to finally decide on the most appropriate type of inventory.The results show an inventory proposal for monopiles consisting of an innovative structure organised on three levels, dividing the support structure into main components, elements and units. To complete it, an inventory procedure has been created, as well as inventory sheets that collects and organises the data generated during the process. The inventory proposal has been validated using a real case.