Reliability analysis of the collection system of an offshore wind farm

In this paper, we introduce a simple model to evaluate the reliability of an offshore wind farm network. The algorithm developed is based on reliability block diagram and minimal path techniques. The minimal paths found are used to evaluate both the exact and the approximate reliability. The first objective of this paper is to estimate the reliability indices of the global network due to the failures of the network components. The second objective is to analyze the placement effect of the redundant paths on the reliability indices considering the economic aspect. This procedure can be useful during the design phase of the optimal connection topology of the collection network of an offshore wind farm.