A multi-criteria decision model to mitigate the operational risks of offshore wind infrastructures

For many power generation systems, it is extremely important to control the likelihood as well as the consequences of potential risks during actual operation. Operational risks may result in substantial costs of repair or replacement, significant losses of power production, and catastrophic safety hazards to personnel or infrastructure. The selection of an appropriate strategy to mitigate the operational risks is a very complex and critical task for the offshore wind energy sector. In recent years, Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) approaches have gained momentum in this field. The aim of this paper is to propose a decision model based on Analytic Network Process (ANP) technique in order to select the best "risk mitigation strategy" for offshore wind infrastructures. The proposed model consists of a number of alternatives (e.g., variation of offshore site layout, improvement of maintenance services, upgrading the control and monitoring systems, and modification in design of wind turbine sub-assemblies) among which the decision maker has to select, on the basis of a finite set of criteria (e.g., safety, added value, cost, and feasibility). The model developed is applied to an offshore wind farm consisting of 30 wind turbines of 2 MW. Our findings indicate that "improving the repair and maintenance services" is chosen to be the most cost-effective approach for mitigating the operational risks of offshore wind infrastructures.