LOG904-180 Offshore Wind Logistics (Autumn 2022)

About the course

The seminar gives an outline of offshore wind energy production, offshore wind production technology, offshore wind farms projects, and an overview of logistical activities and resources for offshore wind farm installation and energy production, including their planning, operations and management. The main focus of the seminar will be on logistics challenges during design, installation and maintenance of offshore wind farms, and the decision support tools for planning of offshore wind farms siting, installation, operation and maintenance on different levels. Offshore energy management software for logistics and work planning for installations projects and maintenance operations will be introduced, providing the operational analysis tools to the various stakeholders of the offshore energy ecosystem like technicians, contractors, marine planners, and managers.

The course is connected to the following study programs

• Master of Science in Logistics
• Experience-based Master in Logistics
• Master of Science in Sustainable Energy Logistics
• Exchange programme - Master's level
• Master of Science in Sustainable Transport and Urban Mobility

Recommended requirements

Optimization modelling, vehicle routing, simulation modelling, energy logistics and economics.

The student's learning outcomes after completing the course

Knowledge:

After completing the course, the students will know about historical development and trends in offshore wind, current advantages and disadvantages of offshore wind energy production, offshore wind farms examples, offshore wind turbines components, structures and characteristics, logistical challenges when designing, scheduling installation and performing maintenance of offshore wind farms, as well as logistical resources used.

 

The students will have knowledge of typical planning problems arising during offshore wind farm design phase including site selection, wind turbine location, and cabling layout. The students will know about logistics resource planning and process scheduling during offshore wind farm installation phase, and logistics planning problems for offshore wind farm operations and maintenance required on strategical and tactical levels.

 

After completing the course, the students will know classification of offshore wind farms maintenance tasks, typical decisions on vessel fleet size and mix and fleet renewal for maintenance operations at offshore wind farms, how to optimize routing and scheduling of vessels and maintenance tasks on a multi-period horizon and on a daily level using optimization models and algorithms and simulation-based optimization tools, and how these tools are used as decision support for planning and analysis.

 

Skills:

After completing the course, the students will be able to apply the knowledge achieved to

• define the phases of offshore wind projects, the offshore wind farms logistical infrastructure and resources, the types of logistics activities and operations

• identify different planning level problems in offshore wind farm logistics

• define logistics challenges wind farm siting, wind turbines location, cabling layout, and installation scheduling planning as optimization problems and to formulate them with optimization and simulation models

• formulate fleet-size-and-mix problem for offshore wind farms maintenance on the long-term basis as deterministic and stochastic optimization problems, their models and solution methods

• formulate scheduling of maintenance tasks for offshore wind farms and routing and scheduling of maintenance fleet as optimization problems and develop relevant optimization and simulation tools

• administrate a demo project for operational planning of resources for a wind farm installation project or/and wind farm maintenance operations, using offshore energy management software

General competence:

After completing the course, the students will be able to

• explain current advantages and disadvantages of offshore wind production

• list several planning problems arising when designing and installing offshore wind farms

• describe optimization and simulation algorithms for making decisions on determining resources, strategy and schedule at installation phase

• describe the nature of maintenance tasks required at offshore wind farms and explain key characteristics of mathematical models for tactical planning of maintenance operations

• describe different strategic questions related to performing maintenance, and

outline the challenges of creating useful models for making strategic decisions in this context

Examination

• Form of assessment: oral examination

• Proportion: 100 %

• Duration: TBD

• Grouping: Individually or group

• Grading scale: Letter (A - F)

• Support material: published material, offshore energy management software