Pathways for Remote Inspection & asset MAintenance support (PRIMA USV)

WHY

Frequent inspections of wind turbines are pivotal for them to remain operational during their lifetime. Traditionally, these inspections and maintenance operations are carried out by trained technicians. Shifting to uncrewed vessels and remote inspections may potentially improve personnel safety and reduce maintenance costs and environmental impact. Uncrewed surface vessels have already been successfully implemented in other industries. However, the business case for introducing this novel technology in offshore wind still needs to be developed.

WHAT

In this project, we aim to evaluate the potential impact of uncrewed surface vessels on:

• workability and cost reduction of offshore wind turbines,
• the ecological and environmental impact of the maintenance activities,
• the downtime of offshore wind farms.

The project team will define various operational strategies using the vast experience of the industrial partners participating in this project. The results of this exercise will help wind farm operators and service providers focus on the most promising solutions for their use case.

In a working session, we will agree on the performance indicators and modelling parameters. We will perform simulations using TNO’s in-house discrete event simulator, UWiSE O&M Planner. The effects of the variations are analysed and compared against a baseline scenario. The project team will regularly discuss and analyse the progress and subsequently fine-tune the approach and assumptions.

During the study, we will use the experience and data from the project partner Fugro, who has developed the uncrewed surface vessels that can launch remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) which will be controlled from their Remote operation centers. Onshore operators control both the vessel and ROV. Project partner Vattenfall will contribute by supplying wind farm-specific operational data.

EXPECTED RESULTS

The study will result in a set of analysed scenarios or use cases for applying uncrewed vessels in combination with remotely operated vehicles. The scenarios will be benchmarked against an agreed baseline scenario. The outcomes of the scenarios will be presented in terms of impact on workability, electricity production costs, environment, and turbine availability.