Planning Maritime Logistics Concepts for Offshore Wind Farms: A Newly Developed Decision Support System

摘要

The wind industry is facing new, great challenges due to the planned construction of thousands of offshore wind turbines in the North and Baltic Sea. With increasing distances from the coast and rising sizes of the plants the industry has to face the challenge to develop sustainable logistics concepts in order to implement projects in the planned cost and time frame. In a research project a simulation tool that considers various logistical specifications of maritime supply chains in offshore wind energy such as weather dependant transport and installation at sea was developed. The whole supply chain can be simulated -starting with the manufacturers and ending with the construction of the wind farm at sea. Different logistical strategies have an essential impact on the realisation time and the costs of a wind farm. With the aid of the simulation tool different scenarios can already be analyzed in the planning process.