From-Design-To-Operations Risk Mitigation In Nordic Wind Energy Assets: A Systematic RAMS+I Management Model

The offshore wind energy sector is growing fast and a lot of effort is put to the business and technology development. Today most current offshore turbines are based on onshore turbine designs and the turbine technology development continues incrementally. At the same time offshore wind marked demands for technological breakthroughs and new concepts increases. The main focus in offshore wind turbine design is reliability and cost efficiency. Most important decisions concerning safety and dependability are made in the early phases of design process that has implications in the operational phase. The later the decisions are made and mistakes realized the more they cost. RAMS+I (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety and Inspectability) issues should be taken into account systematically from the beginning of design process as a risk mitigating measure. Wind turbines in cold climates like in Nordic countries may be exposed to icing conditions or temperatures outside the design limits of standard wind turbines. In this paper we outline a model for managing RAMS+I factors in the conceptual design phase of offshore wind turbine. The model is based on the product development process, concurrent design ideas and the Stage-Gate(R) model. The model concentrates mostly on technical decisions made in the early development phases. Service aspects, such as maintenance concepts, are not in the focus of this paper. In some level service-based factors still have to be involved into technical decisions made. The objective of the presented model is to clarify the fuzzy front end of wind turbine innovation process from the RAMS+I point of view as a risk reduction measure at the operational phase.