Challenges of the offshore environment

Offshore wind turbines face ever increasing challenges from the harsh environment of hu-midity, corrosion, vibration etc. at sea. The effect of the environment on the equipment em-ployed at sea has caused many problems in terms of delay of projects, reduced reliability, down periods etc. Knowledge of the electrical, climatic and mechanical conditions to be conquered and their impact on the different subparts of the wind turbines is the key to design of wind turbines that meet the real world. It is the aim of this paper to give input on how to implement the knowledge of the environ-ment. It should be included in the early stage at specification level, through design guide-lines and during development and qualification testing of the wind turbines. Thus, you are getting a cutting edge on reliability and time-to-market. Further, a case study demonstrates the effect of this on a real-life project. DELTA has gained experience from a large number of projects for the off-shore and wind turbine industry. The presentation is based on the experience a couple of years after Horns-rev. 2