Citation:
E. Lozano-Minguez, Α. J. Kolios, F. P. Brennan. Multi-criteria assessment of offshore wind turbine support structures. Renewable Energy, Volume 36, Issue 11, November 2011, Pages 2831-2837
Abstract:
Wind power, especially offshore, is considered one of the most promising sources
of ‘clean’ energy towards meeting the EU and UK targets for 2020 and 2050.
Deployment of wind turbines in constantly increasing water depths has raised the
issue of the appropriate selection of the most suitable support structures’
options. Based on experience and technology from the offshore oil and gas
industry, several different configurations have been proposed for different
operational conditions. This paper presents a methodology for the systematic
assessment of the selection of the most preferable, among the different
configurations, support structures for offshore wind turbines, taking into
consideration several attributes through the widely used multi-criteria decision
making method TOPSIS (Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal
Solution) for the benchmarking of those candidate options. An application
comparing a monopile, a tripod and a jacket, for a reference 5.5 MW wind turbine
and a reference depth of 40 m, considering multiple engineering, economical and
environmental attributes, will illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed
method