Cost efficient maintenance strategies for wind power systems using LCC

Maintenance costs for wind power plants are a significant part of the total life cycle cost, especially for offshore wind power plants, situated at remote sites. In order to decrease the cost of maintenance, monitoring systems have been used to estimate the condition of critical components in wind turbines. This paper proposes Life Cycle Cost analysis (LCC) approach for maintenance management of wind turbines. The LCC approach for maintenance management presented in this paper is an extension on previous work by J. Nilsson and L. Bertling, where a comparison has been made with this previous work and the same is extended with new data and models. Case studies are presented based on data from three different wind turbines rated 3 and 6MW. Three different scenarios have been studied and the effect of condition monitoring system (CMS) has been analysed. For any chosen value the CMS proves to be a profitable option.