Wind Turbine Operations and Maintenance Market

Governments all over the world are implementing powerful renewable energy policies to mitigate climate change, decrease dependency on fossil fuels, and gain energy independence. These policies are often seen in various climate action plans, clean energy road maps, and numerous international obligations. The European Union has committed to a minimum 42.5% share of renewables by 2030 under the REPowerEU plan, with wind energy expected to play a crucial role in meeting this target. European countries are among the most ambitious in harnessing wind energy as part of their broader energy transition strategies. The recently enacted Revised Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) has established a binding target to increase the share of renewable energy to 45% of the European Union’s gross final energy consumption by 2030. Wind energy is expected to play a pivotal role in reaching this goal, given its scalability, technological maturity, and the continent’s strong policy support. This directive is likely to drive substantial investments, accelerate permitting processes, and promote cross-border cooperation to expand both onshore and offshore wind capacities. In India, the National Wind-Solar Hybrid Policy is designed to promote wind-solar hybrid projects, with a target of achieving 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030.

Operations and maintenance (O&M) expenses can be a major driver of wind turbine lifecycle costs, especially with offshore wind installations, where they can constitute up to 25–30% of the lifecycle costs. Although offshore wind turbine maintenance faces similar issues as onshore wind farms, offshore maintenance activities (even annual maintenance activities) can be more complicated, expensive, and limited by logistical challenges. The factors that limit maintenance activities at offshore wind farms are largely related to accessibility. Weather conditions, including high wind speeds and rough sea states, can prevent maintenance technicians from safely reaching the turbines. These conditions also reduce the available time for routine maintenance or emergency O&M activities. Technicians can only access wind turbines under permissible weather conditions. The permissible weather conditions typically occur when wind speeds are at or below 15 meters per second (m/s), and wave heights are at or below 1.5 meters (Wave). Such restrictions decrease the operational windows for O&M and, therefore, can lengthen O&M-related downtime. There are also logistical moving parts already at offshore wind farms that can complicate the O&M process, which include SOVs, jack-up barges, and helicopters, all of which factor into O&M operational expenses. Wind technicians also face challenges due to the distance between offshore wind turbines and the shore, with some turbines located more than 50 km away. This distance can lead to delays and higher costs, particularly when performing reactive maintenance.

From 2013 to 2022, solar PV and onshore wind were the leaders in global renewable energy investment, attracting 46% and 32% of total investments, respectively. Offshore wind made a slight comeback, accounting for 8% of investments, with solar thermal receiving a mere 5%. Other technologies, including hydropower, biomass, biofuels, geothermal, and marine energies, together received only 7% of the total, with hydropower comprising a sizeable proportion of this group. To facilitate the energy transition, more investment must be made in renewable technologies. The focus on solar and wind energy has intensified, with the two sectors collectively attracting an impressive 95% of total renewable energy investments in 2022. Wind energy is now growing at an extraordinary rate. The total investment for wind in 2023 reached a record USD 180 billion globally, a 20% increase over the previous year. All the actual funding is attributed to increased government targets and supportive policies.

Accessing offshore wind turbine locations poses one of the biggest challenges for operations and maintenance (O&M) in the offshore industry. As the offshore wind industry continues to scale, wind farms are being installed further away from shore, often 30 to 100+ kilometers, and in deeper waters. While these remote offshore locations provide stronger and more consistent wind resources, accessing these sites requires a lot of planning, specialized equipment, and financial resources. Many large-scale projects, such as Dogger Bank in the UK or upcoming U.S. Atlantic Coast projects, are often located far offshore (beyond 30 km), which makes maintenance (and even routine maintenance) logistically and financially complicated.