One of the strategic objectives of the industrial initiative of the SET Plan on wind energy is to reduce cost of energy by improving reliability of wind turbines and their components and optimizing operation and maintenance (O&M) strategies. Increasing reliability and optimizing O&M have a direct impact on the availability of wind turbines and thus reduce cost and increase energy output. This strategy considerably contributes to making wind energy fully competitive. This is particularly evident in the offshore sector, where O&M represents a high percentage of total costs.
MARE-WINT will contribute to the achievement of this goal by proving training in the context of doctoral programmes for 14 researchers in multi-disciplinary area of future generation of Offshore Wind Turbines (OWT) engineering focusing on issues having a major impact on the mechanical loading of OWT and which are still not sufficiently understood.
OWT is a complex energy...