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Weather window analysis of Irish west coast wave data with relevance to
operations & maintenance of marine renewables

Article  in  Renewable Energy · November 2012

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2012.10.021

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 Renewable Energy 52 (2013) 57e66

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Weather window analysis of Irish west coast wave data with relevance to
operations & maintenance of marine renewables
M. O’Connor*, T. Lewis, G. Dalton
Hydraulics and Maritime Research Centre (HMRC), University College Cork, Cork, Ireland

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper presents the results of a weather window analysis of wave data from the west coast of Ireland
Received 27 March 2012 in order to quantify the levels of access to marine renewables for operation and maintenance activities.
Accepted 19 October 2012 Operating and maintaining marine renewables offshore requires suitable weather windows when
Available online 20 November 2012
devices can be accessed. It is important to quantify what the levels of access are off the Irish west coast,
given its high wind and wave resource. Wave data from two wave buoys are analysed to quantify the
Keywords:
levels of access that exist off the west coast. The general wave regimes at both sites are quantified. The
Access
levels of access at various operations and maintenance (O/M) access limits are presented together with
Availability
Exceedance
waiting periods between windows. The levels of access observed off the west coast are then compared to
Persistence levels of access observed at other marine renewable locations. The results indicate that the levels of
access off the west coast are far below those observed at other marine renewable locations. The
implications of these low levels of access suggest that maintaining wave energy converters, off the west
coast, may not be feasible and devices will need to be brought ashore for O/M activities.
Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
This paper presents the results of a weather window analysis of
wave data from the west coast of Ireland in order to quantify the
levels of access to marine renewables, which may be deployed
there for operation and maintenance (O/M) activities. Once marine
renewable devices, such as offshore wind turbines or wave energy
converters (WEC) have been deployed at sea, maintaining them will
not be as simple as for maintaining similar devices onshore. There
are many factors in an offshore environment that make operating
and maintaining a device more difficult, costly and time
consuming. The main factor is that of access. In order to operate and
maintain offshore marine renewables, a device will have to be
accessible for a certain period of time. This will require a weather
window consisting of a consecutive period of wave heights low
enough and long enough for the device to be accessed to undertake
the required O/M task. Wind speeds may also be a factor, particu-
larly for work involving cranes. However as wave heights are the
predominant factor for accessing offshore renewables this report
will only consider wave heights.
To quantify the levels of access that exist off the west coast, wave
data from two wave buoys located off the west coast of Ireland have
been analysed and the data used to quantify the following:
1. Wave energy resource at both sites.
2. Annual mean exceedance at both sites by showing the
percentage of the year that the wave heights are above a certain
level.
3. Wave height frequency by highlighting the annual percentage
each individual wave height makes up of the total wave regime
at both sites.
4. The seasonality of the wave regimes by showing the number of
hours each month, as well as annually, which the wave height
is below a certain level.
5. The number of weather windows for various access limits both
as a number of windows occurring in a year as well as the
percentage of the year that these windows make up.
6. The waiting periods between windows, by showing the longest
waiting period, or worst case scenario, between windows of
a certain length that occur each winter, as well as showing the
mean waiting periods between windows of certain lengths.

Once the levels of access are quantified the implications of the

* Corresponding author. Tel.: þ353 21 4250028. observed levels of access with regard to O/M activities of marine
E-mail address: michael.oconnor@ucc.ie (M. O’Connor). renewables deployed off the Irish west coast are discussed. The

0960-1481/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2012.10.021
58 M. O’Connor et al. / Renewable Energy 52 (2013) 57e66
weather windows for installation or decommissioning of offshore
marine renewables will not be discussed in this paper.
2. Literature review
Maintaining offshore marine renewables, such as WEC’s, will
not be as simple as maintaining similar devices onshore or in a near
shore environment. According to Wolfram [1] “As wave energy
converters will be deployed in regions of high waves and hence
high winds, there may be times when access is not possible by
either boat or helicopter”. There are two main options discussed by
Wolfram for carrying out repairs for offshore devices.
1) To maintain and repair the device on location
2) To disconnect them and return to a shore base
It was concluded by Wolfram that a corrective or breakdown
maintenance strategy would be a less viable option for many wave
energy converters, and a planned maintenance programme would
be the preferred option.
These planned maintenance activities will likely be scheduled
for the periods of calmest weather conditions, usually around mid-
summer. Given that access will be limited during the winter
months, it would appear, according to Wolfram that “the most
practical maintenance interval for many devices would be 1 year.
This could be extended to several years for major maintenance
tasks. However some subsystems will need routine annual main-
tenance, such as oil or fluid changes, to reduce the risk of wear out
failures during the normal service life”. Therefore WEC’s and other
marine renewables “should be designed to have very high overall
system reliability for at least one year, which is likely to involve
redundancy in many components”. It is highly likely that during the
initial deployment of a WEC when reliability is still improving, it
may be difficult to avoid relying on an unplanned breakdown
maintenance scheme, as was the case with the offshore wind
industry [1].
The selection of a suitable maintenance strategy is, according to
Cruz [2] “vital to ensure the long term reliability of the components,
in particular for wave energy converters. The design for reliability
and the initial maintenance schedules must be cautious because
systems failures can be aggravated and there may be no suitable
weather window immediately available to retrieve the machines in
the event of any given failure”.
2.1. Access & availability
The issue of accessibility, the percentage of time that a device
can be accessed [3], will therefore be a major issue that will affect
the operations of wave energy converters and other marine
renewables such as offshore wind. As offshore wind farms are
already in operation, their experience can be used to highlight the
access problem and its effect on device availability. Availability is
defined as the amount of time the turbine or WEC is on hand to
produce electricity [4]. Availability is dependent on a number of
factor such as failure rates, downtimes for recovery after failure,
non-accessibility, lack of spare parts and logistical problems which
influence availability [4]. Non-accessibility will affect the failure
rate and ultimately the availability, as a turbine which can be
accessed more will have more regular maintenance and as a result
tend to have lower failure rates. It will also affect the downtimes
after failure as reduced access may affect the length of time
required to carry out the repair.
According to Van Bussel [5] “for a 150 unit wind farm consisting
of 2 MW wind turbines at least 600 visits have to be paid each year
to keep it in full operation”. This is not a problem for onshore wind
turbines and wind farms, and onshore turbines have availability
levels of 98% or more. However once these wind turbines are placed
offshore the restricted accessibility of the site can make things
much worse. Van Bussel states [5] “This is dependent upon the
wave and wind conditions of the location of the offshore wind farm,
but also upon the way in which access is obtained to the wind
turbines”.
An example of this is the large North Sea wind farm at Horns
Rev, the availability drops to around 90% with accessibility by vessel
at around 65% [5]. This is significantly lower than for the two other
farms situated in the Danish inner seas [5]. Van Bussel mentions
that one method to increase the accessibility is by using a heli-
copter for maintenance crew transfers to the turbine, which in the
case of Horns Rev results in availability going up to 95%. However
the use of helicopters for offshore wind farm transfers is not very
straightforward and is also quite expensive. In the case of Horns Rev
the wind turbines had to be equipped with a platform on the
nacelle, in order to enable maintenance crews to land down from
a hovering helicopter.
In order to ensure high availability of offshore turbines or other
marine renewables, fast on-site repairs or device recovery must be
carried out. It is therefore important that devices have as high
a level of accessibility as possible and also important to quantify
what the levels of access are for marine renewables off the Irish
coast. Another important reason for quantifying the levels of access
is that of economics. According to Dalton [6] more detailed research
is required to determine specifics of device service times as well as
weather windows before more reliable cost estimates for wave
energy projects can be confidently assessed. Walker et al. [7]
assessed the cost implications of weather windows for wave
energy device deployment at UK test sites. They conclude that the
primary influencing factor on the installation capital expenditure is
the downtime due to weather windows and when planning oper-
ations, an understanding of weather windows is essential.
2.2. Access methods & limits
2.2.1. Offshore wind
The conventional and most commonly used access method to
offshore wind turbines is the so called boat-to-ladder transfer.
According to Salzman [8], “Over 90% of all maintenance actions only
require the transfer of personnel and of parts which can be carried
by man or lifted by a turbine’s permanent internal crane”. The
simple boat to ladder method allows the personnel to walk directly
up to the turbine ladder from a vessel’s bow. Safe transfers are
enabled by intentionally creating frictional contact between the
vessel’s bow and the turbine’s boat landing aiming to have no
vessel translations at the point of contact [3]. Obviously, the
downside of this method is that it is limited to calm weather
conditions. According to Rademaker & Braam [9] this trans-
portation of personnel can be done in significant wave heights of
Hs ¼ 2.0 m1.
More recently Salzman [8] states that “Although manufacturers
of vessels built specifically for this purpose state a workability up to
a significant wave height of Hs ¼ 2.0 m, operators claim a more
practical limit of Hs ¼ 1.5 m”.
As well as conventional single hulled vessels there are also
access vessels on the market of multihull form. One such multihull
access vessel is catamarans which can provide safe transfers in seas
“between 1.5 and 2.0 m” [10].
1
Hs ¼ Significant Wave Height.
 M. O’Connor et al. / Renewable Energy 52 (2013) 57e66 59

Table 1
Summary of current access limits for offshore maintenance activities.

Transport type Wave height limit Hs Wind speed limit m/s

Maintenance involving personnel transfers (in situ repairs)
Wave energy converter Conventional vessel Assumed to be less than 1.5 ma
Offshore wind turbine Conventional vessel 1.5 m [8]
Offshore wind turbine Helicopter transfer Not applicable 15 m/s [9]
Offshore wind turbine Catamaran 1.5e2.0 m [10]
Offshore wind turbine SWATH vessel 2.5 m [11]
Offshore wind turbine Ampelmann 3.0 m [3]
Maintenance not-involving personnel transfers (device brought ashore or maintained aboard large support vessel)
Offshore navigation or data buoys Tender vessel 2.5 m [12,13] 8e10 m/s [13]
Wave energy converter (Pelamis) Tug 2.0 m [2]
a
Personal communication with Dr Tony Lewis HMRC. Device dependent and unsubstantiated at present.

Another multihull vessel is a SWATH2 tender which according to Table 2

the Bard group will mean that “Service engineers could now be Estimated levels of access to north sea offshore wind farm [16].
transferred even in seas with wave heights of up to Hs 2.5 m” [11]. Wave height limit Hs (m) Accessibility (%)
Current conventional access methods have resulted in lack of 0.75 34
access being an issue for the offshore wind industry. As a result 1.5 71
research is underway to develop improved access options, for 2 84
offshore wind turbines, that would not be as expensive as heli- 3 95

copters or as susceptible to the weather as traditional boat trans-

fers. One such approach is the Ampelmann3 transfer systems. This
full motion compensation system “provides safe access, in sea
states up to 3 m” [3].
2.2.2. Unmanned marine devices
The Commissioners of Irish Lights (CIL) maintains Ireland’s
offshore navigation buoy network. According to McClenahan [12],
CIL have maintained offshore buoys in sea states of up to Hs 2.5 m
off the west coast. This maintenance activity does not however
involve the transfer of personnel to and from the buoys.
The Marine Institute4 operates two research vessels which
undertake a wide variety of operations each year including instal-
lation and maintenance of offshore weather buoys, these include
the M-Buoys whose data was used in this report. According to
Gillooly [13] “Sea state has the main impact on crane operations
with relatively ‘delicate’ equipment at sea and decision on whether
to lift a buoy is generally made following consultation between the
Chief Scientist/Technician and the Ships Master”. In the Marine
Institute they tend to follow a general rule that it is inadvisable to
deploy or retrieve the buoys in winds above Force5.5 Force 5 winds
will typically result in seas of between 2 and 2.5 m and winds of 8e
10.7 m/s [14].
2.2.3. Wave energy converters
The only specified wave height access limit that is available for
a wave device is that of the Pelamis.6 The maintenance strategy of
the Pelamis involves it to be taken ashore for work to be carried out.
According to Cruz [2] ‘The Pelamis mooring system has been
repeatedly demonstrated on the refitted prototype machine
allowing connection in under 2 h and removal in around 15 min in
seas of Hs ¼ 2 m’. They state that this was achieved in 2007 when
the Pelamis was removed using small work boats in condition up to
Hs 2.0 m’.
According to Malcolm [15] this approach of designing devices
requiring onshore O/M would minimise the weather-sensitivity
and duration of at sea operations as well as improve the health
and safety considerations by not having to board devices and
practical considerations of the environment adversely affecting the
ability to carry out work. The various current access limits for
repairing offshore wind turbines, WEC’s and offshore buoys are
summarised in Table 1.
In summary, the literature review has defined the two impor-
tant considerations for O/M of marine renewables, namely acces-
sibility and availability and the wave heights (Hs) that current
vessel technology can handle. This case study provides the results
of an analysis of wave data for two locations from the perspective of
these criteria.
2.3. Levels of access observed outside Ireland
The levels of access at an offshore wind farm located in the north
sea 45 km off the Dutch coast were estimated in a study by Van
Bussel [16] and are shown in Table 2.
Similar levels of access in the North sea were observed in
another Dutch study which examined the levels of accessibility at
two offshore locations that wave data was available for, one 37 km
offshore and the second 100 km offshore [3]. The study examined
the yearly distribution of sea states of both locations to determine
the year-round accessibility of fictitious wind farms at these two
sites (Table 3).
An analysis of wave data from two sites off the Pacific northwest
coast of the US was conducted by Lenee-Bluhm [18]. This study
included a brief weather window analysis, a summary of which is
shown in Tables 4 and 5, showing the percentage of the year that
the windows, of at least each length, make up at various wave
heights limits. It can be observed that both US sites have levels of

Table 3
2
Small Water Plane Twin Hull http://www.bard-offshore.de/en/more-company- North sea levels of access [3,17].
news/110-taufe-swath-tender.
3
www.ampelmann.nl. Distance to shore Year-round accessibility %
4
MI; http://www.marine.ie/home/ResearchþVessels.htmwww.marine.ie. Hs ¼ 1.0 m Hs ¼ 1.5 m Hs ¼ 2.0 m Hs ¼ 2.5 m Hs ¼ 3.0 m
5
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/marine/guide/beaufortscale.html.
6 37 km 45 68 83 91 95
http://www.pelamiswave.com/our-technology/pelamis-wechttp://www.
100 km 36 60 76 87 93
pelamiswave.com/.
60 M. O’Connor et al. / Renewable Energy 52 (2013) 57e66

Table 4 Table 5
Wave height persistence Col river bar (40 km offshore) [18]. Wave height persistence grays harbour (9 km offshore) [18].

(50e56 kW/m) in wave energy at M3 between 2003 and 2005,

access below those observed at the North Sea locations in Tables 2
and 3. At Col River Bar, 40 km offshore, there would be access to
a device for 25% of the year if windows at least 6 h long were
required at an access limit of 1.5 m. At the North Sea location, 37 km
offshore, at 1.5 m, the levels of accessibility would be 68% of the
year and 71% of the year at the North Sea site 45 km offshore.
2.4. Resource data
Wave data for this case study was made available from the
Marine Institute’s M-Buoys.7 The M-Buoys are operated by the
Marine Institute and record the significant wave height (Hs) for five
locations around the Irish coast. Wave data from two M-buoys was
used. The M1 buoy8 (53.1266 N 11.20 W) located 74 km offshore
and the M3 buoy9 (51.2166 N 10.55 W) located 56 km offshore.
These locations are shown in Fig. 1. These buoys are located off the
west coast where future wave devices arrays are most likely to be
deployed as this is where the greatest wave resource is. The M-
Buoys network also has one east coast buoy M2 and also M5 located
in the Celtic Sea. As the resource at these sites is not as good as the
west coast the levels of access at these sites are not discussed in this
paper.
There are two other Marine Institute buoys. The M4 is located off
the west coast, however its data was collected from two different
locations as it was moved in 2007. The M6 buoy is situated at a far
offshore location which would be too far offshore to be a feasible
site for a wind or wave farm.
whereas at M1 there was an approximate 40% range (47e67 kW/m)
variation. It can be observed that in 2003, M3 had higher, more
energetic waves than M1; however during 2004 and 2005 the
opposite was true. On average over the three years at M1, the waves
had 7% more power per metre than at M3.
3. Methodology
A review of procedures for estimating site accessibility for wave
and tidal projects was conducted as part of the EU Equimar project
[21]. Two approaches were identified, time series analysis and
statistical analysis. The simpler statistical analysis methods were
recommended to be used what only limited site data was available,
usually in the form of a scatterplot of wave height and period at the
site. The approach adopted in this case study was the more thor-
ough time series analysis which provided for a more comprehen-
sive assessment and more detailed results.
3.1. Data validation
Once the raw data was gathered it was compiled and cleaned up.
The compiling process involved gathering the data from the various
years and sources and combining them into one source format and
timestamp.

2.5. Wave energy resource

The average hourly wave power flux per metre of wave front at
M1 and M3 during 2003, 2004 and 2005 is calculated using10

P ¼ 0:59 Hs2 TzðkW=mÞ (1)

where P is the Hourly Wave Power Flux (kW/m), Hs is the Signifi-

cant Wave Height (m) and Tz is the Mean Period or Zero Crossing
(s). 0.59 accounts for constant terms in the wave power formula
such as water density, gravity and p (assuming deepwater) and also
accounts for the conversion from energy period Te to zero-crossing
period Tz assuming a Bretschneider spectrum [20].
The Wave Power Flux was calculated for each hour using the
significant wave height and mean period data from the M buoys
and was then averaged over the whole year to find the average
hourly wave power. The wave energy resource at both sites in each
year is compared in Fig. 2. There was approximately a 10% variation

7
M-Buoys: wave data buoys of the Irish Marine Weather Buoys Network. http://
www.marine.ie/home/publicationsdata/data/buoys/DataBuoyHome.htm.
8
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station¼62090.
9
http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station¼62092.
10
Modified power formula due to recent work at HMRC [20]. Fig. 1. Map showing location of M-buoys (Source: [19]).
 M. O’Connor et al. / Renewable Energy 52 (2013) 57e66
Fig. 2. The average hourly wave power at M1 and M3 in kW/m during 2003, 2004 &
2005.
The various buoys contained data outliers or gaps in the data.
Data gaps are a common problem for wave buoys as a result of
malfunctions, errors in transmitting results or the buoy being out of
service due to maintenance/cleaning. The cleaning process
involved the identification and filling of data gaps where possible.
This was done through a combination of linear interpolation for up
to 3 h of missing entries and using a combination of the previous
and subsequent values to fill gaps longer than 3 h consecutively. For
consecutive missing values greater than 24 h long no attempt was
made to fill them in, as typically this would only occur when data
was missing for a much longer period of time, from a few weeks up
to nine or ten months. In this case, these long periods were left
blank and the year in question was not used when getting average
annual values for certain parameters.
Data from years that did not contain any period described in 3
above were considered ‘full’ or ‘complete’ years. As mentioned
previously in this report only M1 and M3 are discussed. The only years
in which there was a complete set of data at both M1 & M3 are 2003,
2004 and 2005, and these were the years chosen for the case study.
Once the data was processed, analysis was carried out using
a weather windows model based on Excel. The Excel spreadsheets
used the wave data as a database from which various graphs and
tables were produced to show several aspects of the levels of access
available.
Fig. 3. Mean annual exceedance showing the percentage of the year that the wave heights are above a certain level at M1 & M3 averaged for 2003e2005.
61
3.2. Caveats
This analysis is primarily focused on the O/M aspects of offshore
renewables, therefore the lengths of windows and wave height limits
are intended to highlight the levels of access available for O/M acti-
vates. These wave height limits and window lengths may also apply
to other areas such as installation and decommissioning. However, it
may be the case that these processes will require longer windows
with different access limits which are not analysed in this paper.
This analysis also assumes that, unless cranes are required, the
limiting factor for O/M weather windows for marine renewable will
be the wave heights and not the wind speed. It may be the case that
there may be situations where there are relatively calm seas together
with winds high enough to disrupt operations. Further work may be
needed to see if situations arise where there can be both calm seas
and high winds or are these generally mutually exclusive. It is also
assumed that daylight hours have no impact on accessibility.
The significant wave height is the only parameter by which the
levels of access are assessed in this study, others parameters such as
the wave period and tidal flow are not assessed here but will be the
subject of future studies.
Having chosen not to use years where there were long consec-
utive periods of missing data, due to the nature of the analysis,
what remained represented a small sample of only three years at
both sites.
Finally wave energy converters that will be maintained on
location offshore are assumed to be stable enough to allow the
workers to carry out the necessary operations if they can be
accessed. Operability limits in a moving environment where it is
too difficult for personnel to do work are listed and discussed by
Wertheim [22]. These operability limits are dependent on the levels
of motion of each device and it may be the case that a device may be
accessible but its motion may be too great to allow certain tasks to
be carried out on it safely.
4. Results
4.1. Annual mean exceedance
An exceedance graph shows the percentage of the year when
the wave height is above a certain level. The exceedance curves for
M1 and M3 are compared in Fig. 3, where it can be seen that both
62 M. O’Connor et al. / Renewable Energy 52 (2013) 57e66
locations have similar profiles. It can be observed that 70% of the
wave height incidence is above 2.0 m. In general M1 has higher
waves heights than M3. What is not shown however is that during
2003, M3 had higher wave heights than M1 and that during 2004 &
2005 M1 had higher wave heights than M3 as well as the higher
average wave heights over the three years. This was observed in
Fig. 2.
4.2. Wave height frequency
The wave height frequency is the percentage of the total wave
regime comprised of waves at each individual wave height. The
wave height frequency for M1 and M3 over the three years is shown
in Fig. 4. Results show that M3 had a higher percentage of waves
below Hs ¼ 2.0 m than M1, and M1 had a higher percentage of
waves, than M3, higher than Hs ¼ 2.0 m. This would be consistent
with what was observed in the exceedance chart in Fig. 3 with M3
generally having slightly lower values than M1.
4.3. Wave height persistence
As Figs. 2, 3 and 4 have shown that the wave regimes at M1 and
M3 are very similar. Therefore from here on in, data from M1 only
will be used in the remaining analysis.
Both the exceedance and wave height frequency graphs take no
account of the persistence or consecutive nature of the wave
heights in relation to one another. An exceedance graph may show
you that the wave heights are below a certain value for 10% of the
year but it does not reveal how many separate weather windows
this 10% is made up of. No account is taken of extremes and
a complete impression of the accessibility or availability of a device
is not given.
‘Persistence’ is calculated by recording whenever the wave
height was at or below the wave height limit. In the case of
windows greater than 1 h long the length of the window was the
amount of time that it was at or below the limit consecutively.
Data results displayed in Table 6 were produced by summing up
all the windows of at least a certain length at each wave height
limit and finding what percentage of the year the total time
represents. Table 6 presents the Irish wave data in the same way
as was presented in Tables 4 and 5 for the north-western US data
[18].
It can be observed that the percentage values in Table 6 are
related to Fig. 3 in that the ‘1’ hour column values (shaded in
Table 6) are equal to the 100 minus the equivalent percentage value
in Fig. 3 (i.e. At Hs 2.0 m the 1 h column in Table 6 reads 28%. At Hs
2.0 m in Fig. 3 the exceedance charts read 72% [100%e28%]).
Fig. 4. Wave height as a percentage of the total wave regime at M1 & M3.
Table 6
Persistence table for M1, showing the percentage of the year that the wave height is
within a window of at least a certain time length and wave height limit during 2003,
2004 and 2005.
4.4. Annual & monthly hours of wave height below Hs threshold
Fig. 5 displays the average number of hours that the wave height
was at or below each wave height limit level at M1 during each
month. The annual total of the monthly number of hours that the
wave heights were at or below each level are displayed in Table 7,
together with the percentage of the total year that these annual
values equate to.
It can be observed that the highest access occurs during the
summer months and at higher wave height limits. Longer periods
of inaccessibility occur at low wave height limits as a result of the
very low levels of access during the winter months. Also at a wave
height limit of Hs 2.5 m there is more access in winter months than
in any summer month at Hs 1.0 m.
4.5. Annual number of windows
Data results presented so far have been either in percent or total
number of hours. Table 8 is a summary table showing the number of
windows of at least a certain length at the wave height limits Hs 1.0,
1.5, 2.0 & 2.5 m, for window period lengths of at least 6, 12, 24 and
48 h long for 2003e2005. Three values are shown for each wave
height limit and window length in the table. The first is the lowest
number of windows that was observed in any of the three years, the
next value is the mean number of windows that occur in a year and
the final value is the highest number of windows observed over the
three years.
Fig. 6 provides an example of an expanded version of the data
that is summarised in Table 8. A wave height limit of 1.5 m was
chosen in this example (highlighted in Table 8), and the numbers of
windows are displayed as both the least and most cumulative
number of windows that occurred over the three years as well as
the average annual frequency of individual windows. The cumu-
lative least number of windows observed during a year are repre-
sented by the lower edge of the band, and the most number of
windows observed, are shown on the upper edge. The length of
windows is shown on the X-axis. The columns (blue) show the
average annual frequency of the individual windows at M1 for
a wave height limit of 1.5 m.
It can be observed that the number of windows increases as the
wave height limit is increased. The number of windows also
 M. O’Connor et al. / Renewable Energy 52 (2013) 57e66 63

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ar

Ju
M

em
ru
nu

em
em
M

Au

ct
b
Ja

ov
Fe

ec
O
pt

N
Se

D
Fig. 5. The average number of monthly hours for which the wave height is below the wave height limit at M1. The data is shown for wave height limits of Hs 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 & 2.5 m with
data analysed in 2003, 2004 & 2005.

increases as the window length is shortened, although the largest the wave height limit decreases from 1.6 m down to 1 m, the
increase is attained by increasing the wave height limit. longest waiting periods tend to increase sharply.

4.7. Number of waiting periods between windows

4.6. Longest annual waiting periods between windows

The previous table looked at the individual longest annual

Periods of inaccessibility are measured as the longest waiting
waiting periods between windows. Table 10 provides a summary of
period in a year and are displayed in Table 9. The waiting periods
the total waiting periods between windows. Table 10 presents the
were calculated by recording the length of time between windows
number of waiting periods that were between windows at least 6,
at least 6, 12, 24 and 48 h long. Unlike the periods of access, which
12, 24 and 48 h long at M1, at wave height limits of 1.0 m, 1.5 m,
tend to be at their highest levels during the summer months, the
2.0 m and 2.5 m. The data is presented in the table as follows; the
periods of inaccessibility tend to be most pronounced during the
data in the ‘A’ columns at each wave height limit are the number of
winter months. Therefore, unlike periods of access which were
waiting periods less than a week long, the data in the ‘B’ columns
assessed in a calendar year, periods of inaccessibility were assessed
for each wave height limit are the number of waiting periods
over the winter periods which represent the worst case scenario in
between a week and a month long and the data in the ‘C’ columns
each year as it shows the longest time in a year that a device would
are the number of waiting periods over a month long. For example,
be inaccessible for. The figures given at each wave height limit and
for an access limit of 1.5 m and a window length of at least 24 h
window length show the least, mean and greatest of the longest
(cells highlighted in Table 10), the waiting periods, on average,
annual waiting period, in weeks, observed at each site between
consist of 5 waiting periods less than a week long (‘A’ column), 6
2003 and 2005.
between a week and a month long (‘B’ column) and 3 greater than
The overall pattern of access is very visible here as higher wave
a month long (‘C’ column). The 3 waiting periods greater than
height limits have much shorter waiting periods. Similarly the
a month long include the Mean Longest annual waiting period of 25
waiting periods increase if longer windows are required, as these
weeks shown in Table 9 for a window at least 24 h long at 1.5 m.
tend to be rarer. This is highlighted at a wave height limit of 1.0 m
and windows at least 48 h long where windows of this length or
5. Discussion
longer may not occur every year. The longest waiting period
therefore for one of these windows at 1.0 m wave height limit is
This paper presents a weather window analysis of wave data
three years at M1.
from the west coast of Ireland. The data was analysed to quantify
Fig. 7 provides a more detailed expanded version of the data of
the levels of access for O/M activities that would be available to
the cells in the ‘At least 12 h long’ row in Table 9 (highlighted). The
marine energy converters that may be deployed off the Irish west
longest annual intervals between windows of at least 12 h in length
at the M1 site are shown as the greatest and least of these values in
Fig. 7. It can be seen that between Hs 2.0 m to Hs 2.5 m wave height Table 8
limit, there is no significant drop off in longest waiting period. As The minimum, mean & maximum number of windows of at least 6, 12, 24 & 48 h
duration at each wave height limit at M1 during 2003, 2004 and 2005. For example
at a wave height limit of 1.5 m and windows at least 12 h long, the table reads (17-
Table 7
20-26). This shows that between 2003 and 2005 the minimum number of windows
The average number of annual hours, for which the wave height is below the wave
at least 12 h long was 17 in one year, the maximum was 26 in another year and the
height limit at M1, together with the percentage of the year that this total represents.
average over the three years was 20 windows at least 12 h long for a wave height
The data is shown for wave height limits of Hs 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 & 2.5 m with data analysed
limit of 1.5 m.
in 2003, 2004 & 2005. The percentage value is the same value that can be read from
the exceedance chart in Fig. 3 and also shown in the ‘1’ hours column in Table 6. Wave height limits (Hs)

Annual hours % of the year 1m 1.5 m 2m 2.5 m

1.0 m 211 2 Min-mean-max At least 6 h long 5-8-11 26-33-41 49-49-50 61-66-78
1.5 m 1135 13 number of At least 12 h long 4-5-6 17-20-26 36-39-42 44-51-59
2.0 m 2379 28 separate At least 24 h long 1-2-5 10-13-18 24-25-27 37-37-38
2.5 m 3882 45 windows At least 48 h long 0-0-0 3-5-8 11-12-15 17-21-24
64 M. O’Connor et al. / Renewable Energy 52 (2013) 57e66

Fig. 6. Expanded version of the data summarised in the cells highlighted in Table 8 showing cumulative maximum and minimum number of windows that are at least a certain
length together with the average annual frequency of windows M1 for a wave height limit of 1.5 m during 2003, 2004 & 2005. The upper value in the band shows the most number
of windows observed that are at least a certain number of hours. The lower edge of the band shows the least number observed. The columns show the average annual frequency of
windows.

coast. Wave data from two sites M1 and M3 was analysed over
a three year period from 2003 to 2005. The total wave energy over
the three years showed that M1 had slightly higher wave energy
resource than M3. The exceedance and frequency distribution
graphs also demonstrated that the general wave regime at both
sites were quite similar, although overall, there were slightly higher
wave height at M1 than M3. The results from these data sets alone
would suggest that in general there would be slightly more access
and lower wave energy resource at M3 than M1.
To compare the levels of accessibility found at M1 and M3 with
those found in the offshore wind industry, Fig. 8 compares the year-
round accessibility at two North Sea sites, the Irish east coast M2
site with the west coast M1 and M3 sites. The levels of accessibility
that are compared include all times that the device can be accessed,
including periods as short as 1 h long where a device may be
accessed but there may be insufficient time for significant work to
be carried out. The values for M1 and M3 are those that were used
to compile the exceedance charts (Fig. 3). The values for M2 are
taken from [23]. Results show that there is far lower levels of access
off the Irish west coast compared to the Irish Sea and North Sea, the
latter two having similar result statistics. Percentage access values
for the Irish west coast range from 60% for Hs 3 m to a low of only
2% if Hs 1 m is required. This contrasts significantly to the Irish and
North Sea results where the worst case scenario (Hs 1 m) is
approximately equal to the best case scenario (Hs 3 m) off the west
coast of Ireland. Access values for the Irish and North Sea range
from 45% accessibility at Hs 1 m up to almost total access 95% at Hs
3 m.
Other less detailed studies on accessibility were discussed in the
literature section of this paper and demonstrate similar findings.
Van Bussel’s North Sea study [16] quoted 71% accessibility at a wave
height limit of 1.5 m and 84% accessibility at 2.0 m. The workability,
which is assumed to be the same as accessibility, in the North sea of
the Ampelmann system was given in [3] as 85% workability at
a wave height limit of 2.0 m and 93% at a wave height limit of 2.5 m.
According to Salzman [17] “ For a typical offshore wind farm in the
North Sea, a threshold of 1 m significant wave height limits the
accessibility to 50%. When a system can work up to 2.5 m significant
wave height, it can be used during more than 90% of the year”.
These figures are consistent with those mentioned for other North
Sea sites shown in Fig. 8.

Table 9
The longest annual individual waiting period in weeks between windows of at least
6, 12, 24 & 48 h at M1 at wave height limits of Hs 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 & 2.5 m. These waiting
periods are shown above as the least longest, mean longest & most longest waiting
periods observed. For example at a wave height limit of 1.5 m and windows at least
12 h long the table reads (9-16-26). This shows over the three years, the least longest
annual waiting period was 9 weeks, the longest annual waiting period was 26 weeks
and the average longest annual waiting period was 16 weeks over the three years.

Wave height limits (Hs)

1.0 m 1.5 m 2.0 m 2.5 m

Least-mean-most At least 27-30-33 9-12-15 4-7-9 3-6-9
longest waiting 6 h long
period between At least 27-32-36 9-16-26 4-7-9 3-6-9
windows (weeks) 12 h long
At least 42-44-45 19-25-26 6-11-15 4-7-9
24 h long
Fig. 7. Expanded version of the data summarised in the cells highlighted in Table 9
At least 150-150-150 32-34-36 18-22-30 4-11-15
showing least and greatest longest annual waiting period for a window at least 12 h
48 h long
long at M1 for wave height limits from Hs 1.0 to 2.5 m during 2003, 2004 and 2005.
 M. O’Connor et al. / Renewable Energy 52 (2013) 57e66 65

Table 10
The intervals between windows of at least 6, 12, 24 & 48 h at M1, at wave height
limits of Hs 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 & 2.5 m showing the average number of intervals between
the windows of various lengths. At each wave height limit and window length the
data is presented in three columns. The ‘A’ columns are the number of waiting
periods less than a week long, the ‘B’ columns are the number of waiting periods
between a week and a month long and the ‘C’ columns are the number of waiting
periods over a month long.
Table 11
This table shows, at M1, M3, Col river bar and grays harbour the percentage of the
year that the wave height is within a window of at least a certain length at a certain
wave height limit. These percentages are the average values taken at M1 and M3
during 2003, 2004 and 2005. The values Col river bar and grays harbour are taken
from [18].

Wave height limit (Hs)

1.0 m 1.5 m 2.0 m 2.5 m

A B C A B C A B C A B C
At least 6 h long 3 2 4 21 10 3 39 9 2 59 7 1
At least 12 h long 1 1 4 10 8 3 28 10 2 44 8 0
At least 24 h long 0 1 2 5 6 3 14 10 2 28 9 1
At least 48 h long 0 0 1 1 2 3 5 5 3 12 8 2

For a wave height limit of 1.0 m, and a 6 h window, there are 7

Table 11 provides greater detail on percentage accessibility by
subcategorising the results by minimum window length; 6, 12, 24
and 48 h. Results for M1 and M3 are compared with those at two
sites off the north western pacific coast of the US. One site was
40 km offshore and the other 9 km offshore. Results show that there
is almost double the time of accessibility for almost all Hs wave
limits and minimum window lengths at both the US sites compared
with M1 and M3.
Table 12 is a summary table of the number of windows (Table 9)
and longest waiting period between windows (Table 10) of at least
6, 12, 24 & 48 h long at wave height limits of Hs 1.0 m, 1.5 m, 2.0 m &
2.5 m. The numbers of windows are the average values at both M1
and M3. The longest waiting periods are the longest waiting
periods observed at either site.
The number of windows at 6 h length ranged from a maximum
of 68 for Hs limit of 2.5 m to a low of 10 windows for the lowest
wave height limit of Hs 1 m. Number of windows decreased when
longer window times were required, at 48 h length windows
ranged from 24 at the highest Hs limit of 2.5 m, to zero windows at
the lowest wave height limit of Hs 1 m.
The longest waiting times between windows were broadly
similar at both sites. It was found that at a wave height limit of
1.0 m, the longest waiting period for a window at least 6 h long was
approximately 30 weeks. For windows at least 48 h long the longest
waiting period could be more than 1 year as these windows may
not occur every year.
months of no access and 5 months of the year where there would
be very limited opportunities to maintain devices even if shorter
windows were needed. If windows 24 or 48 h long are required,
annual maintenance could not be carried out as these windows
tend not to occur every year. Therefore at an access limit of Hs 1.0 m
there would not be enough access to maintain devices at M1 or M3.
For a wave height limit 1.5 m, there would be enough oppor-
tunities to carry out maintenance on devices, but all of these would
all occur during the summer months with long periods of winter
inaccessibility every year. Therefore the device would require the
capability of working most of the year without requiring mainte-
nance. It will be challenging for pre-commercial wave energy
devices to have a high enough level of redundancy and reliability to
be maintainable at these sites.
At a wave height limit of 2.0 m there should be sufficient
windows of at least 6, 12, 24 and 48 h long for maintenance to be
carried out on devices. The summer months in particular would
consist of prolonged periods of access when numerous operations
could be carried out. There would still be winter periods of many
weeks of inaccessibility which would necessitate high levels of
component reliability and redundancy.
At a wave height limit of 2.5 m there would be ample windows
of all the lengths mentioned above. In the summer months there
would be very prolonged periods, sometimes lasting weeks in
duration, of continuous access to devices. There would still be some
windows during the winter months when operations could take

100%
Year round accessibility (%)

80%

NorthSea 37km
60% North Sea 100km
M2 Irish Sea
M1 71km
40%
M3 36 km

20%

0%
1m 1.5m 2m 2.5m

Fig. 8. Summary comparison of year-round accessibility of two north sea sites [3,17], Irish east coast M2 [23], M1 and M3.
66 M. O’Connor et al. / Renewable Energy 52 (2013) 57e66

Table 12 accessibility off the west coast of Ireland and other global marine
Summary table of number of windows and longest waiting period at wave height renewable locations. Another area of future work will be in
limits of 1.0 m, 1.5 m, 2.0 m and 2.5 m Hs. The results are the average values for both
M1 and M3.
assessing the accuracy of weather window forecasts to determine
the level to which they can support the operational planning of
Wave height limit (Hs)
installation and O/M procedures. Finally, the limiting data set
1.0 m 1.5 m 2.0 m 2.5 m available in this case study was not conducive to statistical analysis.
Windows at least Number of windows 10 35 54 68 It is recommended that a larger data set be used to analyse inter-
6 h long Longest waiting period 36 17 9 9 annual or inter-decadal trends.
(weeks)
Windows at least Number of windows 5 23 43 54
12 h long Longest waiting period 48 26 10 9 References
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