Towards Reliability Risk Analysis of Offshore Wind Farm Substations for Insurance Applications

Insurance is essential for offshore wind farms to be constructed and operated. By 2030, the combined targets and goals of the European governments promise to install up to 160 GW of wind production, increasing insurers' exposure to risks in offshore substations and export cables. Over the last 10 years, most insurance losses in the offshore wind sector have been linked to issues with the offshore export transmission system, including export cables and offshore substations. These vital assets enable electricity transmitted by array cables from offshore wind turbines to be boosted to higher voltage levels and sent to the onshore power grid. Lately, there has been a focus on better understanding the reliability of offshore wind export cables, but there is limited understanding of the inherent reliability and associated insurance risks around offshore substations. These include environmental hazards, construction challenges, electrical malfunctions, and structural and mechanical failures. As a result, construction delays and operational disruptions could occur, leading to large financial losses and resulting in insurance claims. This paper presents a framework for reliability risk analysis of offshore substations to provide a rigorous approach to risk management for offshore substations for insurance applications. The study starts with a comprehensive evaluation of the literature, identifying typical failure modes, mechanisms and related risks. These findings are then used to develop a semiquantitative risk assessment technique by integrating OREDA data with a risk-ranking methodology. The framework's application will be illustrated using hypothetical but realistic insurance loss scenarios where insurance risk is evaluated by combining qualitative descriptions with numerical evaluations for severity and probability. The suggested methodology offers insightful information on the offshore substation risk environment, enhances offshore substation resilience, and informs offshore wind insurance providers and asset owners when evaluating the insurability of offshore wind assets.<p></p>