WIND ENERGY

Wind Energ. 2011; 14:327–337

Published online 26 July 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/we.421

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Wind turbine downtime and its importance for

offshore deployment
S. Faulstich1, B. Hahn1 and P. J. Tavner2
1 Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology, Kassel, Germany
2 Energy Group, School of Engineering, Durham University, Durham DH1 4RL, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT
While the performance and the efficiency of wind turbines and their energy yields have been improved with time, their
reliability still needs improvement, particularly when considering their deployment offshore.
IWES has been gathering operational experience from wind turbines since 1989, being involved in different projects
dealing with the topic of availability and reliability. This paper draws statistical data from Germany’s ‘250 MW Wind’
programme, evaluated by IWES. The prime objective of the survey was to extract information about the reliability char-
acteristics of wind turbines. The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the frequency of failures and duration of down-
times for different wind turbine subassemblies based on existing onshore experience and point out the likely outcomes
when turbines are deployed offshore. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

KEYWORDS
wind turbine; reliability; mean time between failures, failure rate; mean time to repair, downtime

Correspondence
S. Faulstich, Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology, Kassel, Germany.
E-mail: stefan.faulstich@iwes.fraunhofer.de

Received 30 June 2009; Revised 16 June 2010; Accepted 22 June 2010

1. INTRODUCTION

In the period from 1989 to 2006, a large monitoring survey for onshore wind turbines (WTs) in Europe, the Scientific
Measurement and Evaluation Programme (WMEP), had been managed by IWES (The Fraunhofer IWES consists of the
former Institute for Solar Energy Supply Technology and the Fraunhofer Center for Wind Energy and Maritime Tech-
nologies) under the German publicly funded programme ‘250 MW Wind’. The WMEP survey collected 64,000 mainte-
nance and repair reports from 1500 WTs that have been captured and analysed,1 covering approximately 15,357 operational
turbine-years. Hence, the WMEP database contains detailed information about both the reliability and availability of WTs.
It provides the most comprehensive worldwide study on the long-term reliability behaviour of WTs and the most trust-
worthy characteristic reliability parameters—mean time between failure (MTBF) and mean time to repair (MTTR)—
published to date. These two parameters, described in more detail in this contribution, are useful for answering the
following questions: ‘how often does a WT fail?’ and ‘which WT downtimes are associated with which failure?’
The definitions used in the WMEP survey are set out in detail in the WMEP annual reports and previous publications
set out in Ref. 2, but important definitions for this paper are set out in Appendix A. An incident report from WMEP
containing definitions of different WT subassemblies can be found in Appendix B.
Evaluations of this survey show that modern onshore WTs in Europe achieve a high availability of 95–99%, as exem-
plified in Ref. 3. However, despite WT technology progress, in terms of economy and performance, WT reliability has
declined with growing turbine size.4 Electrical and electronic subassemblies, in particular, fail more frequently, leading
to higher failure rates for WTs of higher complexity.5,6 An increasing number of failures cause unplanned downtimes up
to 10 times per turbine per year,7,8 resulting in high maintenance effort and production loss.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. 327

Wind turbine downtime S. Faulstich, B. Hahn and P. J. Tavner

Figure 1. Representativeness of WTs in the WMEP programme to WTs installed throughout Germany.

Unfortunately, the WMEP database does not contain sufficient information to assess fault severity by repair cost, but
analysis of downtime durations may indicate fault severity, giving an indication of downtimes to be expected from offshore
WTs.
The representativeness of the WMEP survey population to the German WT population is exemplified by Figure 1,
which shows the distribution of the WMEP WTs (15,357 turbine-years) compared with the distribution of the whole
German WT population (181,560 turbine-years).
This is amplified in Figure 1(a) with respect to technical concept:

• stall or pitch control,

• constant or variable speed,
• gearbox or direct drive,

and in Figure 1(b) with respect to WT location:

• North German plain,

• German coast,
• German highlands.

These demonstrate that the WMEP survey contains a range of WTs, representative of the whole German population.
Based on data from Ref. 2, Figure 2 shows the failure rates and downtimes for different subassemblies from WTs in
the WMEP survey. Here, the annual failure rate λ (the reciprocal of MTBF) is plotted alongside the downtime per failure,
MTTR. This figure highlights in abscissa lengths the significance of failures in different WT subassemblies. Previous
publications on this subject7,8 concentrate on failure rate rather than downtime, whereas it is clear from Figure 2 that both
are important.
From Figure 2, electrical and electronic subassemblies fail more frequently than mechanical ones, but the mechanical
subassemblies experience longer downtimes.
From WMEP, WT electrical and electronic subassemblies fail on average every 2–2.5 years, whereas a WT drive train,
excluding the gearbox and brake, only fails every 19 years. Nevertheless, it is clear that the less frequent drive train
failures result in much longer WT downtimes, and the more frequent failures of the electrical and electronic subassemblies
are qualified by shorter downtimes.
The total annual WT downtime, due to individual subassemblies, varies between 0.3 day (for blades) and nearly 0.9
day (for the electrical system). Currently, the wind industry focuses strongly on improving the rotor blade, gearbox and
other mechanical subassembly reliability using appropriate condition monitoring systems (CMS). However, these results
show that electrical and electronic subassemblies also cause significant downtimes, which will be extended in offshore
application.

Wind Energ. 2011; 14:327–337 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
328
DOI: 10.1002/we
S. Faulstich, B. Hahn and P. J. Tavner Wind turbine downtime

Figure 2. Reliability characteristics for different subassemblies in the WMEP programme.

2. RELIABILITY CHARACTERISTICS

2.1. Failure rate

The term MTBF is frequently used to describe reliability (see the definitions in Appendix A) and is the average period
between unplanned stoppages. MTBF is an average, statistical value for the time-dependent probability of a system failure.
For a typical failure distribution with some variance, the MTBF represents a top-level aggregate statistic and is unsuit-
able for predicting specific time to failure, so it cannot give information about the time to failure for a particular turbine.
In the case of an exponentially distributed failure statistic, the probability of an individual subassembly being operational
for a time equal to its MTBF is only 36.8%.
Thus, when using MTBF, it is important to consider certain preconditions. The MTBF is the inverse of failure rate λ,
which is only applicable if the failure intensity is constant with time. The development of failure intensity with time for
non-repairable systems is well known and is often described by the bathtub curve, which divides the lifetime of a techni-
cal system into three phases. A theoretical bathtub curve is shown in Figure 3.
The first phase is marked by falling failure intensity due to ‘early failures or teething problems’. This is followed by
a longer second phase, when failure intensity is constant due to ‘intrinsic or random failures’, which can be called failure
rate. This is followed by a period of rising failure intensity as damage accumulates with operational age due to ‘wear
out’. The development of failure rate with operational time for different WT subassemblies has been analysed from the
WMEP programme, and the variation of failure rate for different subassemblies is clear from Figure 4.
For some subassemblies, failure intensity is decreasing with time, for example, in the control system. In some cases,
the failure intensity is increasing with time, for example, for the electrical system. However, the general form of the
bathtub curve can be recognized from Figure 4. Early failures dominate the first year of operation before the failure rate
becomes constant in the intrinsic failures phase of the curve. The wear out phase can be distinguished, for example, start-
ing after 11 years for the gearbox, some years before the supposed of 20 year lifetime of a WT. This could be an artefact
due to the smaller number of WTs in their late operating years in the WMEP programme, although it is confirmed for
some subassemblies after a similar period of 10 years by results from a different onshore WT survey, Landwirtschaft-
skammer Schleswig-Holstein.8

Wind Energ. 2011; 14:327–337 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
329
DOI: 10.1002/we
Wind turbine downtime S. Faulstich, B. Hahn and P. J. Tavner

Figure 3. The intensity function of machinery.

Figure 4. Development of the failure rate with time of operation.

Nevertheless, failures appear to be occurring at an approximately constant failure rate over a large period of turbine
life, and calculating MTBF as the inverse of failure rate λ appears reasonable.
There are several factors that influence the WT failure rate,9 such as wind speed, turbine concept and climatic condi-
tions, which should be part of any appropriate reliability analysis, and these are considered here.
The dependence of reliability on wind speed is analysed in general in Ref. 10. The relation between failure rate and
wind energy index is shown for a population of Danish WTs in Ref. 11, with failure rate increasing at higher wind speeds
and electrical subassembly failure rates showing the strongest dependency. An overview from WMEP data of mean annual
failure rate for various WT concepts and different locations, with varying climatic conditions, is shown in Figure 5.
With increasing the WT concept complexity, a general trend towards a higher failure rate can be observed, which is
particularly noticeable for the electric system, electronic control, sensors, yaw system, rotor blades, generator and drive

Wind Energ. 2011; 14:327–337 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
330
DOI: 10.1002/we
S. Faulstich, B. Hahn and P. J. Tavner Wind turbine downtime

Figure 5. Failure rates of WTs in the WMEP with respect to technical concepts and turbine location.

train. The only downward trends observed are for the mechanical brake and hydraulic system. Other subassemblies (such
as the support and housing, rotor hub and gearbox) show no significant trend.
With regard to WT location, Figure 5 shows that turbines located near the coast and in the highlands suffer higher
failure rates.

2.2. Downtimes, MTTR

It is not possible to extract fault severity information, such as repair costs per incident, from the WMEP data. Therefore,
the authors used the downtime duration to assess failure severity. A statistical value for downtime is the MTTR (see
Appendix A), which is the average time that it takes for a subassembly to recover from any failure. The reciprocal of
MTTR is the repair rate μ.
In the following, the downtime durations are analysed in more depth. Figure 6 illustrates the relative distribution for
all the downtimes of the WTs in the database, and this is asymmetric with a strong weight towards downtimes of short
duration. The distribution could be approximated to a Weibull or exponential function, although tests of different equa-
tions did not lead to a satisfactory fit. However, for qualitative evaluation, the Weibull function has been used in Figure
6 because the WMEP data reflect a large number of short repair and a small number of long repair periods.
In the case of many failures, only a small repair, or manual WT reset or change in the control parameters was needed
to reactivate the WT. From Figure 6, time-consuming repairs with downtimes of several days appear much less frequently
than would be supposed.
Since the severity of a failure and its downtime depends on the affected subassembly, investigation of different down-
times was performed. It can be seen that the downtime distributions have similar shapes for all subassemblies. The clas-
sification of failures, as will be described later, has been made according to the accumulation of the downtime frequency
distribution for different subassemblies, as shown in Figure 7. The heavy black line represents the distribution according
to Figure 6. The dark-shaded area shows the range of distributions for complete subassemblies, such as the generator or
gearbox. The wider, light-shaded area shows the range of distributions of components, such as bearings (being part of
the complete gearbox subassembly), or generator windings (being part of the complete generator subassembly).
From Figure 7, it can be seen that 65–85% of subassembly failures are repaired in less than 1 day, dependent on the
subassembly, but in Figure 2, the average downtime per failure is 1–7 days, although many failures can be repaired in a
shorter time than this.

Wind Energ. 2011; 14:327–337 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
331
DOI: 10.1002/we
Wind turbine downtime S. Faulstich, B. Hahn and P. J. Tavner

Figure 6. Distribution of downtimes in the WMEP programme.

100
Share of faults not exceeding the downtime [%]

80

60

40

20

0
0 1 2 3 4 5
Downtime [days]

Figure 7. Cumulative frequency of downtimes for several subassemblies. Heavy black line: distribution as in Figure 6. (Dark-shaded
area: spread of complete subassembly downtimes. Light-shaded area: spread of component downtimes.)

Wind Energ. 2011; 14:327–337 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
332
DOI: 10.1002/we
S. Faulstich, B. Hahn and P. J. Tavner Wind turbine downtime

3. DIVISION INTO MAJOR AND MINOR FAILURES

It is clear from the previous section that there are substantial differences in downtime between failures. In order to dis-
tinguish more severe failures from those which are less severe, the WMEP failure data have been divided into major
failures (occurring infrequently but with long downtimes) and minor failures (occurring frequently but with short down-
times). A downtime duration of 1 day has been used to divide between these short and long downtimes because with a
downtime longer than 1 day, it is certain that the service team will travel at least twice to the WT site, increasing produc-
tion losses and costs compared with shorter downtimes failures. Therefore,

• Failures with downtimes ≤1 day are assumed to be minor.

• Failures with downtimes >1 day are assumed to be major.

The characteristic failure rates and downtimes for these two classes of failures are shown for all subassemblies in
Figure 8. The ratio between the total downtimes of minor failures to the total downtimes of major failures varies from
0.10 for the electrical system to 0.02 for the gearbox. It should be noted that the proportion of minor failures is signifi-
cantly larger for the electrical and electronic subassemblies. It can be seen that electrical system minor failures cause
eight times the gearbox downtime and about twice the rotor downtime. Thus, to improve the WT availability, operators
should attend to minor failures, particularly concentrating on electrical and electronic subassemblies.
For onshore application, minor failures (representing about 75% of the total number) are responsible for only 5% of
the downtime, whereas major failures (representing 25% of failures) are responsible for 95% of the downtime.
The implication for onshore WTs is that maintenance and condition monitoring effort should concentrate on the
25% of failures causing the majority of downtime. However, Figure 8 shows that these failures are not concentrated
on a few subassemblies but are spread amongst a number, and work is needed to investigate these failures in more
detail. Assuming the gearbox, generator, yaw system and rotor failures cause long downtimes but also high repair
costs, reliability improvement and condition monitoring development onshore should concentrate especially on these
subassemblies.

0,45 0,17 0,08

Electrical System 0,12 6,55 Minor failures 0,80
0,34 0,15 0,05
Electronic Control 0,09 6,87 0,63
Major failures
0,20 0,16 0,03
Sensors 0,05 6,41 0,32

Hydraulic System 0,18 0,18 0,03

0,05 5,93 0,28
0,13 0,16 0,02
Yaw System 0,05 10,09 0,46
0,12 0,18 0,02
Rotor Hub 10,93 0,62
0,06
0,11 0,02
Mechanical Brake 0,16 0,37
0,03 13,08
0,02
Rotor Blades 0,09 0,18 0,28
0,02 11,86
0,06
0,01
Gearbox 0,17 0,59
0,03 18,38

0,07
0,01
Generator Minor failures 0,15 0,58
0,04 14,34

0,14
0,01
Support & Housing 0,08
Major failures 0,02 28,01 0,46
0,01
0,03 0,17
Drive Train 0,02 15,47 0,30
0,5 0,25 0 7,5 15
Annual failure rate Downtime per failure [days] Mean annual
Downtime [days]

Figure 8. Reliability characteristics for different subassemblies in the WMEP programme dividing faults into minor and major
failures. [Minor failures: 1.8 per year (75%) causing 0.3 day downtime (5%). Major failures: 0.6 per year (25%) causing 5.7 days
downtime (95%).]

Wind Energ. 2011; 14:327–337 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
333
DOI: 10.1002/we
Wind turbine downtime S. Faulstich, B. Hahn and P. J. Tavner

Furthermore, electronic control and electrical system subassemblies are responsible for a large portion of the total
downtime shown in Figure 8. Assuming that these subassembly faults are seldom detected in advance, more detailed
statistical analyses should concentrate on them.

3.1. Offshore WTs

Onshore WTs suffer from a large number of faults, which are easy to resolve with a small effect on downtime. As offshore
WT technology has been directly derived from onshore technology, similar faults can be expected, but under offshore
conditions, the downtime due minor faults will be increased due to limited accessibility, and it is expected that increased
downtime will result.
The dilemma of maintaining offshore WT has already been described in Ref. 12. It has been shown that the availabil-
ity of an offshore wind farm, which is depicted as a function of site accessibility, will decrease. Table I confirms that the
availability of existing European offshore wind projects, based on current published data, is low and needs improvement.

3.2. Outlook

The analyses presented in this paper are based on data from the onshore WMEP programme. A more detailed analysis
of downtime would need to take more factors into account.9 However, because of the diversity of these factors, a subdi-
vision of WTs into different groups could lead to single groups with an inadequate statistical basis for analysis, even from
a broad database like WMEP.15
To overcome this limitation, a collaborative reliability database is proposed, using as much experience as possible,
where standardized data structures are required and consideration is extended to offshore turbines.
Joint activities to standardize operation and maintenance measures, documentation and data structures for onshore WTs
have commenced on a national German basis. First steps have also been made for offshore WTs. A group of planners
and operators has confirmed support for a new German survey to monitor the development of offshore WTs as an aid to
improving the availability of offshore wind power plants. This new project is named ‘Offshore~WMEP’ following the
former German monitoring survey for onshore turbines and is currently developing the concept for the project as shown
in Figure 9.

Table I. Availability of existing wind farms onshore and offshore.

Wind farm Distance offshore (km) Average technical availability (%)

Years of operation

1 2 3

European wind farms onshore — 98.2 (average from Ref. 2)

North Hoyle, UK, offshore 8 84.0 (Ref. 13) 89.1 (Ref. 13) 87.4 (Ref. 13)
Scroby Sands, UK, offshore 2 84.2 (Ref. 13) 75.1 (Ref. 13) 90.4 (Ref. 13)
Kentish Flats, UK, offshore 8.5 87.0 (Ref. 13) 73.5 (Ref. 13) —
Egmond aan zee, Netherlands, 11 81.4 (Ref. 14) — —
offshore
Barrow, UK, offshore 10 67.4 (Ref. 13) — —

Figure 9. Concept of the Offshore–WMEP database.

Wind Energ. 2011; 14:327–337 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
334
DOI: 10.1002/we
S. Faulstich, B. Hahn and P. J. Tavner Wind turbine downtime

4. CONCLUSIONS

4.1. Onshore

This paper has extracted average failure rates and downtimes from maintained, onshore German WTs in the WMEP
programme, distinguishing between major and minor failures. The paper has demonstrated the following:

• Durations of downtimes due to failures for different WT subassemblies vary from a few hours to months, and the
distribution is strongly asymmetric. Failures can be grouped into ‘minor’ failures (which can be resolved within one
day) and ‘major’ failures (which require longer).
• Minor failures (representing 75% of all failures) are responsible for only 5% of the downtime, whereas major failures
(representing 25% of all failures) are responsible for 95% of the downtime.
• Minor failures cause relatively little downtime but require considerable maintenance attention and significant repair
effort.
• The development of CMS needs to concentrate on these major failures.
• Particular attention must be paid in the future to improving the reliability of electrical and electronic subassemblies.
An important element of this must be the application of reliability-based maintenance.

4.2. Offshore

Regarding offshore wind energy use, the paper has shown the following:

• The conclusions above are likely to be more significant offshore, where longer waiting, travel and work times will
amplify the influence of minor failures on offshore WT availability.
• Preliminary results from existing offshore wind farms confirm the likely increase in annual downtimes caused by
these minor failures. However, current offshore wind farm experience has been with WTs no more than 12 km
offshore. For wind farms planned at ≥50 km from shore, availability may decline even further.

4.3. Outlook

• In Germany, it is proposed that in order to address the different issues of offshore wind energy application,
an Offshore–WMEP should supersede the former WMEP programme. Collecting reliability data in a standardized
way and to improve the maintenance and availability of offshore WTs will be some of the core issues of the
Offshore–WMEP.

APPENDIX A

Definitions used in the WMEP survey

• Reliability—the probability of a device performing its purpose adequately for the period of time intended under the
operating conditions encountered.
• Availability—the probability of finding a system in the operating state at some time into the future.
• Mean time to failure (MTTF).
• Mean time to repair, or downtime—the average time it will take for a subassembly to recover from any failure
(MTTR).
• Mean time between failures or reliability—the average period between unplanned stoppages of a subassembly
(MTBF): MTBF = MTTF + MTTR = 1/λ + 1/μ
• Failure rate: λ = 1/MTBF
• Repair rate: μ = 1/MTTR
• Availability: A = (MTBF − MTTR)/MTBF = 1 − (λ/μ)

Wind Energ. 2011; 14:327–337 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
335
DOI: 10.1002/we
Wind turbine downtime S. Faulstich, B. Hahn and P. J. Tavner

APPENDIX B

WMEP incident report

Maintenance and work carried out report-nr.

Repair Report day month year

WMEP 250 MW-Wind

cause of malfunction
post code plant identification number
high wind malfunction of control system
grid failure component wear or failure
operator lightning loosening of parts
icing other causes
cause unknown
manufacturer and model

reason for repair effect of malfunction

scheduled maintenance overspeed reduced power

scheduled maintenance with overload causing follow-up damage
replacement of worn parts or repair of defects noise plant stoppage
vibration other consequences
unscheduled reapir after malfunction

down time removal of malfunction

perfect functioning of plant after
not stopped stopped
control reset changing of control parameters
from repaired or replaced components

to hub gear box

day month time hub body bearings
pitch mechanism wheels
reading of hour counter pitch bearings gear shaft
rotor blades sealings

costs stated on bill blade bolts mechanical brake

blade shell brake disc
aerodynamic brakes brake pads
generator brake shoe
material Euro
generator windings drive train
generator brushes rotor bearings
labour Euro
bearings drive shafts
electric couplings
journey Euro
converter hydraulic system
fuses hydraulic pump
total cost incl. VAT Euro
switches pump motor
cables/connections valves

comments sensors hydraulic pipes/hoses

anemometer/wind vane yaw system
vibration switch yaw bearings
temperature yaw motor
oil pressure switch wheels and pinions
power sensor structural parts/housing
revolution counter foundation
control system tower/tower bolts
electronic control unit nacelle frame
relay nacelle cover
mesurement cables and connections ladder

operator Replaced main components

place/date nacelle yaw system
rotorblade/-blades tower
hub control system cabinet
signature gear box transformer
generator
W&I /ISET 10/02

Wind Energ. 2011; 14:327–337 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
336
DOI: 10.1002/we
S. Faulstich, B. Hahn and P. J. Tavner Wind turbine downtime

REFERENCES
1. Faulstich S, Durstewitz M, Hahn B, Knorr K, Rohrig K. Windenergie Report Deutschland 2008, Institut für solare
Energieversorgungstechnik (Hrsg.), Kassel, 2008.
2. [Online]. Available: http://www.iset.uni-kassel.de/pls/w3isetdad/www_iset_new.main_page?p_name=7261110&p_
lang=eng (Accessed 9 August 2009).
3. Hahn B. Zuverlässigkeit, Wartung und Betriebskosten von Windkraftanlagen. Proceedings of the First Rheiner
Windenergie-Symposium, Kötter Consulting Engineers, Rheine, 2003.
4. Hahn B, Durstewitz M, Rohrig K. ‘Reliability of wind turbines’ in wind energy. Proceedings of the Euromech Col-
loquium 464b 2005 Oldenburg. Springer-Verlag: Berlin, 2007; 329–332.
5. Faulstich S, Hahn B. Comparison of different wind turbine concepts due to their effects on reliability. UpWind, EU
supported project No. 019945(SES6), deliverable WP7.3.2, public report, Kassel, 2009.
6. Echavarria E, Hahn B, van Bussel GJW, Tomiyama T. Reliability of wind turbine technology through time. Journal
of Solar Energy Engineering 2008; 130: 031005-1–031005-8.
7. Tavner PJ, Xiang J, Spinato F. Reliability analysis for wind turbines. Wind Energy 2007; 10: 1–18.
8. Spinato F, Tavner PJ, van Bussel GJW, Koutoulakos E. Reliability of wind turbine subassemblies. IET Renewable
Power Generation 2009; 3: 1–15.
9. Faulstich S, Hahn B. Appropriate failure statistics and reliability characteristics. Proceedings of the German Wind
Energy Conference (DEWEK), Bremen, 2008.
10. Hahn B. Zeitlicher Zusammenhang von Schadenshäufigkeit und Windgeschwindigkeit. FGW-Workshop ‘Einfluß der
Witterung auf Windenergieanlagen’, Institut für Meteorologie, Leipzig, 6 May 1997.
11. Tavner P, Edwards C, Brinkman A, Spinato F. Influence of wind speed on wind turbine reliability. Wind Engineering
2006; 1: 55–72.
12. Bussel Gv. Offshore wind energy, the reliability dilemma. Proceedings of the First World Wind Energy Conference,
Berlin, 2002.
13. UK DTI Capital Grant Scheme Annual Reports: North Hoyle Offshore Wind Farm: July 2004–June 2005, North
Hoyle Offshore Wind Farm: July 2005–June 2006, North Hoyle Offshore Wind Farm: July 2006–June 2007, Scroby
Sands Offshore Wind Farm: January 2005–December 2005, Scroby Sands Offshore Wind Farm: January 2006–
December 2006, Scroby Sands Offshore Wind Farm: January 2007–December 2007, Kentish Flats Offshore Wind
Farm: January 2006–December 2006, Kentish Flats Offshore Wind Farm: January 2007–December 2007, Barrow
Offshore Wind Farm: July 2006–June 2007.
14. NoordzeeWind Report OWEZ_R_000_20081023. Netherlands, 2008.
15. Faulstich S, Hahn B, Jung H, Rafik K. Suitable failure statistics as a key for improving availability. Proceedings of
the European Wind Energy Conference (EWEC), Marseille, 2009.

Wind Energ. 2011; 14:327–337 © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
337
DOI: 10.1002/we