One of the key benefits of offshore wind is its cost-competitiveness, with offshore wind project costs expected to decline, citing factors such as “competitive auctions, stable power purchase agreements, transmission and siting.” Most importantly, many states have made significant legislative actions towards clean energy in the country, as well as authorizing offshore wind development in U.S. territories.

Technological breakthroughs are also now presenting viable opportunities such as using big data to help reduce costs, specifically in wind turbine operations and maintenance, according to an independent report by the University of East Anglia (UEA), commissioned by James Fisher and Sons plc, which assessed how big data has the “potential to significantly reduce the huge costs associated with wind farm operations.”

Big data’s importance in general is how it empowers the procuring of data from any source and analyzing it to enable cost reduction, time reductions, new product development and optimized offering, and smart decision making. In this case, big data in offshore wind development can inform decisions in turbine design, monitoring, and maintenance. The report also demonstrates how an integrated software solution with improved data collection and management could make marine management more efficient.

This big data related to operations and maintenance can prove valuable in terms of gauging efficiency in wind turbine monitoring, marine operations, and supply chain management.

In another report, big data approach was also used in long-term monitoring of wind farms, which would help in addressing failures of turbine subcomponents and predicting such failures, in order to adequately prepare and plan in advance. The report cited an “integrated clean dataset spanning all turbines of the wind farm for a sufficiently long period of time” as an example.