Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MooringSense (MOORING SYSTEM INTEGRITY MANAGEMENT THROUGH MONITORING, DIGITAL TWIN AND CONTROL TECHNOLOGIES FOR COST REDUCTION AND INCREASED EFFICIENCY)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2021-05-01 al 2022-10-31
The problem:
The mooring system of a floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) is composed by several lines anchored to the seabed that keep the platform in the desired location. Mooring systems are critical components due to their impact in the stability, structural design and dynamics of the platform and the associated risk of collapse of the whole system in case of failure. Oil&Gas (O&G) has a long track record and experience in mooring systems design and operation. However, despite mooring components are designed for a typical lifetime of 20 years, high safety factors are applied and integrity management plans are implemented (including monitoring and inspection) failure do happen. Between 2000 and 2013, at least 42 mooring failures occurred in permanent Floating Production Units in the UK, resulting in partial or total replacements, or pre-emptive remedial interventions.
Mooring systems’ design principles and integrity management plans used in FOW so far have been based on O&G recommended practices. Since a Floating Offshore Wind (FOW) farm of 500MW is assumed to have more than 150 mooring lines, the situation suggests that FOW industry will need to take action to mitigate the probability of failure in a much more efficient way.
Consequently, there is a need to develop a more efficient integrity management approach based on accurate and reliable monitoring technologies and appropriate risk-based inspection approaches specific to FOW to reduce operational costs and increase annual energy production (reduce losses).
The need:
Wind energy development will contribute with a 40% reduction of the CO2 emissions in the European Union by 2030, the decarbonisation of the economy being part of the Energy Union Strategy. The SET-Plan Declaration on Strategic Targets in the Context of an Initiative for Global Leadership in Offshore Wind states: “Wind energy is the renewable energy technology expected to provide the largest contribution to the targets for 2020 and beyond.” It is expected that by 2030 21-24% of electricity supply will come from wind. In this context, “Offshore wind (OW) represents a significant future opportunity”. However, floating offshore costs are still substantially above grid parity, and significant innovation is needed. In particular, the SET-Plan Declaration targets for offshore floating wind energy an objective for Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) of 12 ct€/kWh by 2025 and 9ct€/kWh by 2030, while these values are far away from the LCOE achieved for prototype (20.1ct€/kWh) and pre-commercial (16.6ct€/kWh) projects like Hywind Scotland.
Objectives:
MooringSense aims at reducing FOW operational costs by 10-15% and increasing operational efficiency by means of an increase of Annual Energy Production by 2-3%, through the development of more efficient strategies and tools for mooring system integrity management and control. MooringSense will take advantage of mooring systems’ updated condition information, provided by a Digital Twin (DT) and innovative monitoring technologies, to allow the implementation risk-based integrity management plans and more holistic control strategies to reduce OPEX and increase energy production of FOW farms.
The mooring system of a floating offshore wind turbines (FOWT) is composed by several lines anchored to the seabed that keep the platform in the desired location. Mooring systems are critical components due to their impact in the stability, structural design and dynamics of the platform and the associated risk of collapse of the whole system in case of failure. Oil&Gas (O&G) has a long track record and experience in mooring systems design and operation. However, despite mooring components are designed for a typical lifetime of 20 years, high safety factors are applied and integrity management plans are implemented (including monitoring and inspection) failure do happen. Between 2000 and 2013, at least 42 mooring failures occurred in permanent Floating Production Units in the UK, resulting in partial or total replacements, or pre-emptive remedial interventions.
Mooring systems’ design principles and integrity management plans used in FOW so far have been based on O&G recommended practices. Since a Floating Offshore Wind (FOW) farm of 500MW is assumed to have more than 150 mooring lines, the situation suggests that FOW industry will need to take action to mitigate the probability of failure in a much more efficient way.
Consequently, there is a need to develop a more efficient integrity management approach based on accurate and reliable monitoring technologies and appropriate risk-based inspection approaches specific to FOW to reduce operational costs and increase annual energy production (reduce losses).
The need:
Wind energy development will contribute with a 40% reduction of the CO2 emissions in the European Union by 2030, the decarbonisation of the economy being part of the Energy Union Strategy. The SET-Plan Declaration on Strategic Targets in the Context of an Initiative for Global Leadership in Offshore Wind states: “Wind energy is the renewable energy technology expected to provide the largest contribution to the targets for 2020 and beyond.” It is expected that by 2030 21-24% of electricity supply will come from wind. In this context, “Offshore wind (OW) represents a significant future opportunity”. However, floating offshore costs are still substantially above grid parity, and significant innovation is needed. In particular, the SET-Plan Declaration targets for offshore floating wind energy an objective for Levelised Cost of Energy (LCOE) of 12 ct€/kWh by 2025 and 9ct€/kWh by 2030, while these values are far away from the LCOE achieved for prototype (20.1ct€/kWh) and pre-commercial (16.6ct€/kWh) projects like Hywind Scotland.
Objectives:
MooringSense aims at reducing FOW operational costs by 10-15% and increasing operational efficiency by means of an increase of Annual Energy Production by 2-3%, through the development of more efficient strategies and tools for mooring system integrity management and control. MooringSense will take advantage of mooring systems’ updated condition information, provided by a Digital Twin (DT) and innovative monitoring technologies, to allow the implementation risk-based integrity management plans and more holistic control strategies to reduce OPEX and increase energy production of FOW farms.
ALL the projected tasks and work packages were successfully completed within the project timeline:
• State-of-the-art revision and update of mooring systems’ integrity management technologies and degradation mechanisms modelling.
• Definition of the FOWT reference case and the baseline to be used in the project development for the MooringSense concept implementation and impact assessment
• Definition of the MooringSense Digital Twin (DT) architecture.
• Definition of functional specifications and validation procedures for the components of MooringSense.
• Development of the GNSS algorithms.
• HW/SW design and first prototype of the Smart Sensor.
• HW/SW design and implementation of the Smart Sensor
• Real test and validation of the Smart Sensor in the sea lab
• Definition of the numerical modelling techniques to assess the degradation, failure and remaining Useful Life (RUL) of mooring lines.
• Development of the FOWT coupled model, including a baseline controller for the reference case.
• Validation of the numerical coupled model and tank testing
• Definition of SHM Solution, Big data approach.
• Prototype of the solution (SHM demonstrator) and improvements.
• Validation tasks of the SHM solution with simulation and Smart Sensor test data.
• Development of the floating wind turbine controller and observer.
• Development of the wind farm control schemes, strategies, and their evaluation
• Integrity Management Strategy Definition.
• Development of the of TNO’s cost modelling and decision support tool.
• Definition and development of the closed loop control of loads to increase efficiency
• All the previous achievement were executed together withing a defined strategy of solutions integration trough a software tool to assess the fulfilment of targeted improvements in AEP, OPEX & CAPEX.
• The fulfilment was validated trough a tests' execution program by the software tool.
• Finally, the global impact assessment of the MooringSense Project was carried out.
Overview of the results and their exploitation and dissemination:
• The integrated objectives have been addressed using the cost model, and reflection on all the defined KPIs (cost, technical, other) have been provided as summary of the project impact.
• Several scenarios (mooring configuration, failure rate level) have been evaluated, which leads to results that are presented in ranges.
• The main results of the integrated analysis of the hybrid mooring configuration that contribute to LCOE are:
- OPEX reduction ranges from 15-26% depending on the failure rate level.
- AEP increase ranges from 2-5% depending on the failure rate level.
- CAPEX reduction of at least ~3.5%.
• Definition of communication and dissemination plans, including the elaboration of procedures and tools for coordination and monitoring.
• Development and implementation of communication and dissemination materials and activities:
• Most of the KPIs related to project dissemination and communication have been significantly improved with respect to the initially intended metrics (see D8.6).
• State-of-the-art revision and update of mooring systems’ integrity management technologies and degradation mechanisms modelling.
• Definition of the FOWT reference case and the baseline to be used in the project development for the MooringSense concept implementation and impact assessment
• Definition of the MooringSense Digital Twin (DT) architecture.
• Definition of functional specifications and validation procedures for the components of MooringSense.
• Development of the GNSS algorithms.
• HW/SW design and first prototype of the Smart Sensor.
• HW/SW design and implementation of the Smart Sensor
• Real test and validation of the Smart Sensor in the sea lab
• Definition of the numerical modelling techniques to assess the degradation, failure and remaining Useful Life (RUL) of mooring lines.
• Development of the FOWT coupled model, including a baseline controller for the reference case.
• Validation of the numerical coupled model and tank testing
• Definition of SHM Solution, Big data approach.
• Prototype of the solution (SHM demonstrator) and improvements.
• Validation tasks of the SHM solution with simulation and Smart Sensor test data.
• Development of the floating wind turbine controller and observer.
• Development of the wind farm control schemes, strategies, and their evaluation
• Integrity Management Strategy Definition.
• Development of the of TNO’s cost modelling and decision support tool.
• Definition and development of the closed loop control of loads to increase efficiency
• All the previous achievement were executed together withing a defined strategy of solutions integration trough a software tool to assess the fulfilment of targeted improvements in AEP, OPEX & CAPEX.
• The fulfilment was validated trough a tests' execution program by the software tool.
• Finally, the global impact assessment of the MooringSense Project was carried out.
Overview of the results and their exploitation and dissemination:
• The integrated objectives have been addressed using the cost model, and reflection on all the defined KPIs (cost, technical, other) have been provided as summary of the project impact.
• Several scenarios (mooring configuration, failure rate level) have been evaluated, which leads to results that are presented in ranges.
• The main results of the integrated analysis of the hybrid mooring configuration that contribute to LCOE are:
- OPEX reduction ranges from 15-26% depending on the failure rate level.
- AEP increase ranges from 2-5% depending on the failure rate level.
- CAPEX reduction of at least ~3.5%.
• Definition of communication and dissemination plans, including the elaboration of procedures and tools for coordination and monitoring.
• Development and implementation of communication and dissemination materials and activities:
• Most of the KPIs related to project dissemination and communication have been significantly improved with respect to the initially intended metrics (see D8.6).
1) DT of the Mooring System: development of detailed digital replica of the mooring system
- Virtual measurement of Mooring line loads Accuracy of tension standard deviation from water tank test data
- Mooring System RUL determination associated to a probability
2) Smart Motion Sensor: development of low-cost and robust smart motion sensor
- let the DT to measure virtually the mooring lines’ loads
- let the control system to reduce dynamic loads in the mooring lines
- let the SHM system to detect failures
- accuracy: P <20cm; V<1mm/s; Att<02º
- Reduction 90% current monitoring costs
3) SHM system: development of early fault detection algorithms under a data-driven approach
- At least, > 3 foremost damage types are detectable
4) FOWT Control: To develop control strategies to optimize operation at wind farm level to:
- Extent 10% mooring life
- Real-time optimizing of overall wind farm production
- Less than 60 person-h of annual onsite NDTs
5) Integrity Management Strategy
-4-9% availability increase through reduced system & weather downtime
-Reduce mooring failure ~ 50%
-15% insurance cost reduction
6) Clear exploitation strategies & dissemination
- Virtual measurement of Mooring line loads Accuracy of tension standard deviation from water tank test data
- Mooring System RUL determination associated to a probability
2) Smart Motion Sensor: development of low-cost and robust smart motion sensor
- let the DT to measure virtually the mooring lines’ loads
- let the control system to reduce dynamic loads in the mooring lines
- let the SHM system to detect failures
- accuracy: P <20cm; V<1mm/s; Att<02º
- Reduction 90% current monitoring costs
3) SHM system: development of early fault detection algorithms under a data-driven approach
- At least, > 3 foremost damage types are detectable
4) FOWT Control: To develop control strategies to optimize operation at wind farm level to:
- Extent 10% mooring life
- Real-time optimizing of overall wind farm production
- Less than 60 person-h of annual onsite NDTs
5) Integrity Management Strategy
-4-9% availability increase through reduced system & weather downtime
-Reduce mooring failure ~ 50%
-15% insurance cost reduction
6) Clear exploitation strategies & dissemination