More and more wave energy converter (WEC) concepts are reaching prototype level. Once the prototype level is reached, the next step in order to further decrease the levelized cost of energy (LCOE) is optimizing the overall system with a focus on structural and maintenance (inspection) costs, as well as on the harvested power from the waves. The target of a fully-developed WEC technology is not maximizing its power output, but minimizing the resulting LCOE. This paper presents a methodology to optimize the structural design of WECs based on a reliability-based optimization problem and the intent to maximize the investor's benefits by maximizing the difference between income (e.g., from selling electricity) and the expected expenses (e.g., structural building costs or failure costs). Furthermore, different development levels, like prototype or commercial devices, may have different main objectives and will be located at different locations, as well as receive various subsidies. These points should be accounted for when performing structural optimizations of WECs. An illustrative example on the gravity-based foundation of the Wavestar device is performed showing how structural design can be optimized taking target reliability levels and different structural failure modes due to extreme loads into account.

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In order to reduce the cost of electricity produced by wave energy converters (WECs), the benefit of selling electricity as well as the investment costs of the structure has to be considered. This paper presents a methodology for assessing the control strategy for a WEC with respect to both energy output and structural fatigue loads. Different active and passive control strategies are implemented (proportional (P) controller, proportional-integral (PI) controller, proportional-integral-derivative with memory compensation (PID) controller, model predictive control (MPC) and maximum energy controller (MEC)), and load time-series resulting from numerical simulations are used to design structural parts based on fatigue analysis using rain-flow counting, Stress-Number (SN) curves and Miner's rule. The objective of the methodology is to obtain a cost-effective WEC with a more comprehensive analysis of a WEC based on a combination of well known control strategies and standardised fatigue methods. The presented method is then applied to a particular case study, the Wavestar WEC, for a specific location in the North Sea. Results, which are based on numerical simulations, show the importance of balancing the gained power against structural fatigue. Based on a simple cost model, the PI controller is shown as a viable solution.

Inspection and maintenance expenses cover a considerable part of the cost of energy from offshore wind turbines. Risk-based maintenance planning approaches are a powerful tool to optimize maintenance and inspection actions and decrease the total maintenance expenses. Risk-based planning is based on many input parameters, which are in reality often not completely known. This paper will assess the cost impact of this incomplete knowledge based on a case study following risk-based maintenance planning. The sensitivity study focuses on weather forecast uncertainties, incomplete knowledge about the needed repair time on the site as well as uncertainties about the operational range of the boat and helicopter used to access the broken wind turbine. The cost saving potential is estimated by running Crude Monte Carlo simulations. Furthermore, corrective and preventive (scheduled and condition-based) maintenance strategies are implemented. The considered case study focuses on a wind farm consisting of ten 6 MW turbines placed 30 km off the Danish North Sea coast. The results show that the weather forecast is the uncertainty source dominating the maintenance expenses increase when considering risk-based decision-making uncertainties. The overall maintenance expenses increased by 70% to 140% when considering uncertainties directly related with risk-based maintenance planning.

Inspection and maintenance costs are a significant contributor to the cost of energy for wave energy converters. There are different operation and maintenance strategies for wave energy converters. Maintenance can be performed after failure (corrective) or before a breakdown (preventive) occurs. Furthermore, a helicopter and boats can be used to transport equipment and personnel to the device, or the whole device can be towed to a harbour for operation and maintenance actions. This article describes, among others, a risk-based inspection and maintenance planning approach where the overall repair costs including costs due to lost electricity production are minimized. The risk-based approach is compared with an approach where only boats are used and another approach where the target is to minimize the downtime of the device. This article presents a dynamic approach for total operation and maintenance costs estimations for wave energy converter applications including real weather data and damage accumulation. Furthermore, uncertainties related with costs, structural damage accumulation, inspection accuracy and different maintenance strategies can be included. This article contains a case study where different maintenance strategies are applied for the Wavestar device, and the influences of the different parameters, for example, failure rate, inspection quality and inspection interval, are evaluated for the overall costs and the number of repairs needed during its lifetime.