Mappost develops prototype for offshore wind maintenance planning

At Mappost, we are constantly innovating and seeking new applications for our route and resource optimization competencies. Recently, we have ventured into the blue economy and sustainable energy sector, developing a groundbreaking prototype to optimize maintenance planning for offshore wind turbines.

Challenges in Offshore Wind Maintenance Planning

The offshore wind industry faces numerous challenges in maintenance planning, including:

• Complex logistics: coordinating the transportation and deployment of personnel and equipment to offshore sites requires meticulous planning and efficient resource allocation.
• Predictive maintenance needs: the ability to predict and prevent equipment failures is crucial to minimizing downtime and ensuring continuous energy production.
• Harsh environmental conditions: the marine environment poses significant difficulties for maintenance crews, including adverse weather conditions and accessibility issues.

The current maintenance practices rely on static maintenance schedules or ad-hoc manual adjustments, which can lead to inefficiencies, increased downtime, and reduced energy production.

Our prototype is designed to tackle these challenges by providing a robust, scalable, and intelligent solution that supports proactive maintenance strategies.

About the Prototype

The prototype addresses the critical need for efficient maintenance planning in the offshore wind sector. Offshore wind turbines require regular and precise maintenance to ensure optimal performance and longevity. Traditional maintenance planning, especially for large offshore wind farms, can be time-consuming and complex, often leading to inefficiencies and increased operational costs.

The protoype is designed to be user-friendly and functional. Users can import maintenance task data, including turbine locations, which is then validated and prepared for optimization. The optimization solver processes the data, taking into account numerous factors such as task durations, task-skill compatibility, and time windows. The optimized maintenance plan is then displayed on an interactive map, allowing users to see the most efficient sequence of tasks that conform to all requirements, and use that as basis for maintenance planning.

Benefits and Impact

Our prototype has significant potential to improve maintenance efficiency and safety while reducing downtime and operational costs. Key benefits include:

• Reduced maintenance planning time: automatically optimizing the sequence of maintenance tasks can dramatically decrease the time required for planning.
• Increased turbine uptime: by ensuring timely and efficient maintenance, the tool helps maximize the operational time of turbines.
• Safety improvements: optimized maintenance schedules can mitigate safety risks by ensuring that tasks are performed in the most effective order.

Future Plans and Potential

As it advances in line with client requirements, the tool has the potential to leverage real-time data from IoT sensors and historical maintenance information to optimize daily vessel routing and scheduling.

Furthermore, the tool provides predictive insights for planning and developing new offshore wind parks, enabling stakeholders to anticipate challenges and streamline resource allocation.

As we look ahead, we invite industry leaders, partners, and stakeholders to collaborate with us. Together, we can continue to pioneer solutions that address the evolving needs of the offshore wind sector and beyond. Reach out to us for more information or to schedule a demonstration of our prototype.

In the prototype development Mappost has proved itself in front of a jury and received financing from the GreenOffshoreTech project which supports innovation in SMEs, fostering the emerging Blue Economy by creating new products, processes, and services for a green, sustainable, and resource-efficient economy. Learn more about our projects here.