Scheduling of maintenance tasks and routing of a joint vessel fleet for multiple offshore wind farms

Maintenance costs related to offshore wind farms are severely limiting their potential for being profitable. This paper proposes a new mathematical model that considers how maintenance tasks should be scheduled and performed by technicians transported using a fleet of dedicated vessels. The model is novel in its combination of modelling several work shifts and including vessels that can stay offshore for several shifts, while handling large maintenance tasks and accurate calculation of downtime costs. Simulation is used to evaluate the performance of the model in its pure form, as well as when solved heuristically using a rolling horizon heuristic. The results indicate that the end-of-horizon effects of the mathematical formulation are handled effectively. Computational experiments also illustrate how the mathematical model coupled with simulation can be used to evaluate strategic decisions regarding the composition of a vessel fleet used to execute maintenance tasks