Full Title: An Operations and Maintenance Roadmap for U.S. Offshore Wind: Enabling a Cost-Effective and Sustainable U.S. Offshore Wind Energy Industry Through Innovative Operations and Maintenance
Author(s): Josh Paquette, Michelle Williams, Ryan Clarke, Michael Devin, Shawn Sheng, Chloe Constant, Caitlyn Clark, Jason Fields, Vahan Gevorgian, Matt Hall, Jason Jonkman, Jon Keller, Amy Robertson, Latha Sethuraman, and Jeroen van Dam
Publisher(s): U.S. Department of Energy
Publication Date: May 16, 2024
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Description (excerpt):
The United States is currently experiencing rapid growth in the offshore wind energy market, with a pipeline of over 52 gigawatts (GW) (Musial et al. 2023), coupled with state targets of 112 GW. Even considering future wind turbine sizes, this amount represents thousands of new wind turbines installed in a diverse set of environments, each with unique challenges in design, installation, and maintenance. While much can be learned from European and Asian experience with offshore wind energy over the past two decades, it is important to understand the circumstances of the United States. This report explores operations and maintenance (O&M) of offshore wind energy for the United States, based primarily on other countries’ experience but also including U.S.-specific considerations (e.g., highly varied climates, ambitious domestic deployment goals, lack of a sufficiently large and skilled workforce with offshore wind experience, and limited vessels for maintenance).
The report also provides a roadmap for needed activities to ensure reliability and cost-effectiveness of future installations. The roadmap was informed through dozens of interviews and a few stakeholder engagement activities representing a wide cross section of the industry, including representatives from original equipment manufacturers, owner/operators, consulting companies, certification agencies, service providers, and researchers.