Developing the optimal vessel fleet size and mix model to minimize the transportation cost of offshore wind farms

It is crucial for the present generation of offshore wind farms to develop ways to reduce their operation and maintenance expenses to sell electricity at competitive market pricing. A wind farm located offshore will typi-cally consist of a huge number of turbines, each of which must be maintained regularly. It is vital to make maintenance plans that reduce production losses and downtime. Also, it is essential to effectively use expensive resources such as service vessels and technician hours. This article starts with an overview of the vessel fleet size and mix problem that arises while maintaining offshore wind farms using a fleet of maintenance vessels. The main emphasize of this work is to establish the best assignments of vessels to the routes and technicians on the vessels in terms of cost. In this paper an integer programming model is formulated taking into consideration the relevant characteristic peculiarities and limits encountered in the vessel management of offshore wind farm. An algorithm is developed that has been implemented using a commercial solver. A case study is done to show the computational and dimensional perspectives of the problems in real-life settings. The findings give not only the optimal cost but also the comprehensive arrangements, both of which are directly applicable to the process of planning for maintenance vessel fleet size and mix selection.