This study demonstrates lifetime assessments of a wind turbine structural component as the tower and rotating components as the main bearings using the controller data, measurements, and no blade design information, representing a realistic scenario for operating turbines. A tower bottom virtual load sensor framework based on neural networks was proposed using different input combinations to replace the tower sensor. The estimated lifetime was considerably longer than the design lifetime.

This study analyses maintenance data from over 1,000 onshore and offshore wind turbines covering 4,200 operating years to assess failure rates, repair times, and maintenance needs. It compares failure rates per turbine and per MW, examines time-dependent failure behaviour, and evaluates maintenance interventions. Results show higher onshore failure rates and identify the pitch, control, and converter systems as most critical.

A surrogate-based design optimization framework has been implemented for a floating wind turbine. By integrating surrogate modeling and analytical design constraints, computationally efficient exploration of design spaces is ensured. This integration provides a connection between conceptual and detailed design. The proposed methodology achieved a reduction of 3.7 % in the Levelized Cost of Energy, considering ultimate, fatigue, and serviceability limit states.

This paper presents a methodology to develop machine learning models designed to predict, in real-time, hourly fatigue damage accumulation in the mooring lines of floating wind turbines, from measurements of five environmental variables: wind speed, wind direction, wave height, wave period, and wind-wave misalignment. The proposed tool is intended for predictive maintenance applications, which has been identified as a key area for cost reduction in floating wind.

Floating offshore wind technology has high potential but still faces challenges for gaining economic competitiveness to allow commercial market uptake. Hence, design optimization plays a key role; however, the final optimum floater obtained highly depends on the specified optimization problem. Thus, by considering alternative structural realization approaches, not very stringent limitations on the structure and dimensions are required. This way, more innovative floater designs can be captured.