Flight Leader Concept for Wind Farm Load Counting: Offshore evaluation

ECN has developed a demo version of the Flight Leader model, which is based on a concept with which the accumulated mechanical loading of all turbines in an offshore wind farm can be estimated at acceptable costs. This information can be used to optimise and lower the cost of Operation & Maintenance (O&M), for example by prioritising inspections and replacements. In this paper the background and general concept of the Flight Leader model are presented. A full Flight Leader analysis has been performed using data from the Dutch offshore wind farm OWEZ. In this paper the approach and results of the analyses are discussed.