Function
Operations relate to management of the asset such as health and safety, control and operation of the asset including wind turbines and balance of plant, remote site monitoring, environmental monitoring, electricity sales, administration, marine operations supervision, operation of vessels and quayside infrastructure, and back office tasks.
What it costs*
About £31 million per annum for a 1 GW wind farm. This includes training, onshore and offshore logistics support and management, overheads, health and safety inspections and insurance.
Who supplies them
The owner of the wind farm typically creates a special-purpose vehicle to operate the project. This may have several shareholders, one of which is likely to take a lead role.
Operations tasks for offshore wind farms are typically provided by the majority wind farm owner.
Some aspects of wind farm operations are contracted to companies such as Boston Energy, Deutsche Windtechnik, James Fisher Marine Services and 3Sun.
Key facts
An onshore control room provides access via SCADA and other systems to detailed real-time and historical data for the wind turbines, substation, met station, offshore crew and vessels. Systems ensure that the operations duty manager knows where all personnel and vessels are located.
Wind farms are monitored remotely on an ongoing basis using SCADA and condition monitoring systems and periodically by way of active inspections, including of subsea infrastructure.
A senior authorised person (SAP) is available at all times with coordination responsibility for the switching operations of all high voltage equipment.
Review of SCADA data and prognostic condition monitoring can help to time preventative maintenance before failure occurs. The industry is steadily adopting more advanced data driven approaches to maximising asset value, including the increased use of performance analytics, performance benchmarking and integrated digital systems.
In addition to hardware-related activity, environmental monitoring to understand the effect of the wind farm on the local environment and wildlife is also carried out.
Wind farms can be broadly categorised as having:
- An onshore base (at an OMS port), with day-to-day access to the wind farm via CTVs. An onshore base is typically used if the wind farm is less than 40nm from shore or if the wind farm is less than about 400 MW (where the number of technicians does not justify the cost of an offshore base), or
- An offshore base, for wind farms greater than about 40nm and greater than 400 MW, which is likely to be a SOV, although fixed platforms have been used.
In practice, wind farm operators adopt a flexible approach, particularly during peaks of activity. In both cases, helicopters may be used in addition to CTVs and SOVs. Careful planning of routine and unscheduled activities with due consideration of weather conditions and availability of spares and specialist vessels is critical.