Resilience management processes in the offshore wind industry: Schematization and application to an export cable attack

Offshore wind energy (OWE) production is a crucial element for increasing the amount of renewable energy. Consequently, one can observe a strong and constant rise of the OWE industry, turning it to an important contributor of national energy provision. This trend, however, is accompanied by increasing pressure on the reliability, safety, and security of the OWE infrastructure. Related security threats are characterized by high uncertainty regarding impact and probability leading to considerable complication of the risk assessment. On the other hand, the resilience concept emphasizes the consideration of the system’s response to such threats, and thus, offers a solution for dealing with the high uncertainty. In this work, we present an approach for combining the strengths of risk and resilience management to provide a solution for handling security threats in OWE infrastructures. Within this context, we introduce a quality assessment enabling the quantification of the trustworthiness of obtained results

An Expert-Driven Probabilistic Assessment of the Safety and Security of Offshore Wind Farms

Offshore wind farms (OWFs) are important infrastructure which provide an alternative and clean means of energy production worldwide. The offshore wind industry has been continuously growing. Over the years, however, it has become evident that OWFs are facing a variety of safety and security challenges. If not addressed, these issues may hinder their progress. Based on these safety and security goals and on a Bayesian network model, this work presents a methodological approach for structuring and organizing expert knowledge and turning it into a probabilistic model to assess the safety and security of OWFs. This graphical probabilistic model allowed us to create a high-level representation of the safety and security state of a generic OWF. By studying the interrelations between the different functions of the model, and by proposing different scenarios, we determined the impacts that a failing function may have on other functions in this complex system. Finally, this model helped us define the performance requirements of such infrastructure, which should be beneficial for optimizing operation and maintenance

Testing Resilience Aspects of Operation Options for Offshore Wind Farms beyond the End-of-Life

An anticipated challenge for the offshore wind industry is the legally standardized decommissioning of offshore wind infrastructure after the expiration of the respective approval period. To meet the energy and climate targets set by, e.g., the German Federal Government, this challenge must be mastered in the context of sustainability. Potential concepts are (i) the deconstruction of offshore infrastructure without replacement, (ii) the continued operation of the plants, (iii) partially or even completely replacing them with newer, modernized plants (re-powering). Re-powering could also be a combination of existing infrastructures with other innovative technologies, such as hydrogen. In this work, the three concepts are analyzed along with their risks and additional factors, such as feasibility, cost-effectiveness, predictability of technological progress, and, planning security, are discussed. A quantitative risk and resilience analysis is conceptually demonstrated for the specific risk of extreme weather and wave conditions caused by climate change. Synthetic wave height data are generated and the corresponding load changes are applied to example offshore wind farms. The three end-of-life options are compared using resilience indicators that serve as exemplary measures for the energy output, which serves as the key performance indicator

A joint approach to Safety, Security and Resilience using the Functional Resonance Analysis Method

The protection of Offshore Wind Farms (OWF), a critical part of maritime infrastructure, faces new challenges due to the continually increasing share of renewable power generation (planned to reach 65 % until 2030 in Germany). This is especially due to the large size of individual OWF (centralized generation units) and new threats such as climate change and their potential as targets for terrorism. It is no longer sufficient to simply optimize the performance of energy generation; the infrastructure also needs to be kept resilient when facing these new threats. To improve resilience, safety and security measures have to be taken into account and therefore safety, security and resilience (SSR) need to be addressed collectively. To this end, SSR goals are identified for a generic OWF by analyzing stakeholder needs and expectations. These goals include not only safe energy generation but also environmental protection, compliance with regulations, hazard defense and security. The SSR goals are classified and detailed in (i) who/what needs protection, (ii) hazards, and (iii) measures with available sensors. A common modeling tool in resilience research, the Functional Resonance Analysis Method (FRAM) is employed to visualize and model interrelations/interactions between SSR goals. The feasibility to model SSR goals as functions and the respective expected variabilities with FRAM are also studied. Further, the possibility to identify critical paths in the FRAM model which allows the introduction of cascade effects is assessed. Critical SSR Goals are identified that need further measures to increase the level of fulfillment and to keep the infrastructure protected