Structural Health Monitoring Systems (SHMS) will reduce Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE)

An inspection strategy, which is based on the deep knowledge of the structural integrity of your assets, enables and ensures the necessary cost reductions especially in offshore wind industry. The optimized evaluation process of the windfarm allows to switch from periodic to conditioned based inspections and further on extend the liftetime of your wind turbines:

Of the annual operating costs, approximately 4,500 euros per MW are spent on underwater and tower inspections. From our experience, these inspection costs can be reduced by 50 percent. Furthermore, the use of SHMS makes it possible to objectively achieve a lifetime extension of around 4-8 years. The investment costs are thus spread over a 20 percent longer period of use, which significantly reduces the levelized cost of energy (LCOE).

"A [...] route to reduce OPEX, and subsequently LCOE, is through the optimisation of the inspection and maintenance strategies. This optimisation is carried out by switching periodic or risk-based inspection regimes to a condition-based regime. In order to do so, periodic inspections can be postponed or directly taken out of the scope of works whenever the condition of the assets is proven to be appropriate. SHMS are currently the best approach to gain confidence in the assets’ integrity without actually deploying offshore."

(Source: Martinez-Luengo, M.; Shafiee, M.: Guidelines and Cost-Benefit Analysis of the Structural Health Monitoring Implementation in Offshore Wind Turbine Support Structures. Energies 2019, 12(6), 1176; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12061176)

In our interactive calculation tool, you will discover your individual potential for cost savings and lifetime extension by implementing SHMS. All incurred costs are included except unscheduled activities.