Wholistic and Integrated digitaL tools for extended Lifetime and profitability of Offshore Wind farms

Wholistic and Integrated digitaL tools for extended Lifetime and profitability of Offshore Wind farms

Wind energy takes on a large share in the energy market and will play a crucial role in securing the stability of power grids in the future. However, operation of wind farms, and especially offshore wind farms, are not yet ideal. The operation in fluctuating conditions of wind availability and power grids demand as well as the harsh environmental condition where the offshore wind farms are built, have a negative effect on the structure health of the wind turbines, and therefore on their useful lifetime. In this context, WILLOW will develop an integrated system that will provide an open-source, data-driven smart curtailment solution to the Wind Farm Operators with the basis of an integrated Wind Farm Control system looking for a trade-off between the power production and the lifetime consumption. With this aim, WILLOW pretends to design a novel Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) System able to provide high quality data to perform a reliable fleet life assessment using physical models and data-based AI methods which will be used for decision-making and maintenance scheduling. This will contribute to the reduction of the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) and to the increase of the Annual Energy Production (AEP) towards the current trend of design and operating life of offshore wind farms with up to 20 MW turbines beyond 50 years. The WILLOW consortium consists of 12 partners with complementary assets and founded expertise, capable to take on the challenge set out by the topic.