Work on the Operations & Maintenance (O&M) of LiftWEC systems to date has been centred on developing the O&M simulation tool, OM Expert. OM Expert is a cloud-based application coded under the Microsoft .NET framework which can be used to assess the O&M requirements of a given system. A detailed description of the implementation of OM Expert for the LiftWEC system can be found in LiftWEC Deliverable 7.2 “Operations & Maintenance Model Development”. The model takes as main inputs the number of WECs in a farm, power capture characteristics, met-ocean data, failure rates and available vessel fleet and technicians. The model calculates expected downtime, average energy yield as well as costs associated with repairs.

A broad assessment of the O&M requirements of various possible LiftWEC implementations is given in LiftWEC Deliverable D7.3 “Operations & Maintenance Assessment of Preliminary Configurations”. Preliminary investigations on the proposed deployment site used for viability assessment reveal that the site is quite energetic. An exposed Atlantic site is promising for raw energy potential but more restrictive in terms of available weather windows for offshore work. It was found that using conventional vessels, utilising quick “plug and play” installation techniques was more cost effective than utilising expensive heavy lift vessels. Future work will tie this and other findings into the recommended design criteria for LiftWEC systems.