COSMO is a computer tool designed for analysis of marine operations in the installation phase of an offshore wind farm. It offers a digital representation of the logistical operations of an offshore wind farm, and is designed for early phase planning of offshore wind farm installation, built with a view to:
- Minimise the total time for the installation of an offshore wind farm
- Minimise the risk of delays, e.g. related to weather
- Minimise total cost of the installation of an offshore wind farm
- Evaluate and compare different concepts, both related to installation vessel concepts and concepts for installation, e.g. installation strategies
In addition to planning the operations, the tool can also be used by vessel and installation concept developers to evaluate the effects of new concepts at an early stage.
COSMO has an underlying optimisation algorithm that is a version of a Genetic Algorithm where solutions
found are evaluated by an agent-based simulation model that takes into account the effects of weather and coordination between vessels, as well as installation tasks that are to be executed.
COSMO has been developed in earlier projects, its predecessor is a tool from the EU Leanwind project (2013-2017), and COSMO itself has been developed in close cooperation with Equinor (2016-2019). It is currently at TRL4, and the plan for further development within NorthWind is to establish a model at TRL5. To reach this level, there is a need for some improved model development and testing from project participants. Aker Offshore Wind is one of the partners that will test the tool in 2022.
