Title: Asset management strategies for wind turbines: keeping or retrofitting existing wind turbines?

Authors: Suna Cinar; Saeed Rubaiee; Mehmet Bayram Yildirim

Addresses: Department of Industrial, Systems and Manufacturing Engineering, Wichita State University, Wichita, KS 67260, USA ' Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Jeddah, Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia ' Department of Industrial, Systems and Manufacturing Engineering, Wichita State University, 1845 Fairmount Street, Box 35, Wichita, KS 67260-0035, USA

Abstract: In this study, a parallel replacement problem with retrofitting (PRP-R) model is proposed to determine the trade-off between retrofitting and replacing an asset. The primary objective is to identify the replacement, maintenance and retrofitting schedule that optimise purchasing new assets, operation and maintenance (O&M) cost, and retrofitting cost under budget and production constraints resulting in a mixed-integer linear programming formulation. This model is applied to a case study of energy industry involving wind turbines (WTs). Results show that due to a lower O&M cost, retrofitting is less costly than keeping the WTs. In addition, the effects of key parameters such as O&M cost, retrofitting cost, budget allocated for retrofitting and governmental subsidy on the optimal replacement policy on total cost are studied. This research contributes a model that can be used to determine if WT retrofitting is economically justified and provides a rigorous analytical framework for optimising the decision-making process over the wind farm life cycle.

Keywords: wind turbine; mixed-integer linear programming; asset management; retrofitting; optimisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJOR.2021.114302

International Journal of Operational Research, 2021 Vol.40 No.3, pp.318 - 341

Received: 06 Oct 2017
Accepted: 18 Jun 2018
Published online: 16 Apr 2021 *

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