The economic success of offshore wind energy projects relies on accurate projections of the construction, and operations and maintenance (O&M) costs. These projections must consider the logistical complexities introduced by adverse met-ocean conditions that can prohibit access to the offshore assets for sustained periods of time. In response, the goal of this study is two-fold: (1) to provide high-resolution estimates of the accessibility of key offshore wind energy areas in the United States (U.S.) East Coast--a region with significant offshore wind energy potential; and (2) to introduce a new operational metric, called serviceability, as motivated by the need to assess the accessibility of an offshore asset along a vessel travel path, rather than at a specific site, as commonly carried out in the literature. We hypothesize that serviceability is more relevant to offshore operations than accessibility, since it more realistically reflects the success and safety of a vessel operation along its journey from port to site and back. Our analysis reveals high temporal and spatial variations in accessibility and serviceability, even for proximate offshore locations. We also find that solely relying on numerical met-ocean data can introduce considerable bias in estimating accessibility and serviceability, raising the need for a statistical treatment that combines both numerical and observational data sources, such as the one proposed herein. Collectively, our analysis sheds light on the value of high-resolution met-ocean information and models in supporting offshore operations, including but not limited to future offshore wind energy developments.

翻译：海上风电项目的经济成功依赖于对建设、运营与维护（O&M）成本的准确预测。这些预测必须考虑恶劣海洋气象条件带来的物流复杂性，这些条件可能导致在持续时间内无法接近海上设施。为此，本研究的目标是双重的：(1) 为美国东海岸——一个具有巨大海上风电潜力的区域——的关键海上风电能源区提供高分辨率的可达性估计；(2) 引入一种新的运营指标，称为可服务性，其动机源于需要评估海上设施沿船舶航行路径的可达性，而非如文献中通常所做的那样仅评估特定站点的可达性。我们假设，可服务性比可达性更贴近海上运营实际，因为它更真实地反映了船舶从港口往返作业点整个航程中操作的成功与安全性。我们的分析揭示了可达性与可服务性存在高度的时空变化，即使对于邻近的海上位置也是如此。我们还发现，仅依赖数值海洋气象数据可能会在估计可达性与可服务性时引入显著偏差，这凸显了需要一种结合数值与观测数据源的统计处理方法，例如本文所提出的方法。总体而言，我们的分析揭示了高分辨率海洋气象信息与模型在支持海上运营（包括但不限于未来海上风电开发）方面的价值。