The project will investigate options for the assembly, deployment, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of potential LiftWEC systems. The aim is to identify the device design requirements associated with O&M activities at an early stage in the project such that retrospective accountancy does not result in significant unforeseen impacts on system performance or viability. The work will consider key questions such as;

• How will the device be manufactured?
• How will the device be installed?
• How will the device be maintained over the course of its life?
• What are the costs of each of the lifecycle stages and how much downtime and consequently energy yield can be expected?
• How does the design impact operation cost and complexity?
• How could the systems be designed or improved to minimise the cost and complexity of operations?

All operational phases of the LiftWEC concept will be considered and used to provide feedback to the conceptual design, ensuring that the LiftWEC configurations are feasible from an O&M perspective.

A series of O&M orientated design considerations for the LiftWEC system have been developed, focusing on acquiring key insights from existing wave energy deployments and other offshore industries, which is described in Deliverable D7.1 “Operational Design Considerations”. To briefly summarise, the following recommendations outline some of what the interviewees felt were the most prevalent points of learning;

• Keep the device as simple as possible,
• Design for redundancy such that there is no single point of failure,
• Try to use conventional vessels in the lifecycle phases, as vessels are the main cost penalty,
• Have a well-planned installation and O&M strategy developed as early as possible.

The next stage of the O&M work will involve investigating preliminary configurations (through a more detailed financial analysis) and identifying their pros and cons from an operations perspective. This will require an adept O&M tool which is currently in development.