Posters

Abstract

Operation and Maintenance (O&M) for offshore wind energy is adapting to the new requirements set by the industry, which is currently phasing out traditional practices, dominated by a strong human presence, in favour of robotised ones. This demand stems on one hand from the concern related to the safety of the operators involved in dangerous procedures in confined or risky environments, exposed to oftentimes harsh environmental conditions. On the other, it is driven by the need of reducing both financial expenditures and timings of such activities, highly impactful on the farm downtime and still dependent on heavy logistics. This study, developed within ATLANTIS H2020 project, reviews the workforce and equipment necessary in two different scenarios: (i) inspection of wind turbine blades and tower and (ii) inspection of the floating structure. Timings and cost concerning these two scenarios are computed and a comparison between conventional and robotised methodologies is then performed. Robots integrated in the inspection activities at turbine level include Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs), while the inspection of the floating structure projects ASVs and Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs). The current analysis of O&M practices is conducted for the WindFloat Atlantic, a floating offshore wind farm located in the Atlantic Ocean, 20 km off the coast of Portugal, where the water depth reaches 100 m. This case study is particularly suited for the benchmark object of this paper, given the current trend that shows an increase in size and distance from shore of offshore wind farms installations. These factors combined lead to a higher complexity of O&M procedures, thus turning the transition from human-based to robot-based interventions even more pivotal.