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This study investigated productivity in an offshore wind project to understand the distribution of their value-adding and non-value-adding hours. A comprehensive literature review presented results on productivity in regular mega-projects, revealing a limited knowledge of offshore wind projects. From the first quarter of 2019 to the early second quarter of 2020, 62,447 realized activities, equaling 213,786 h, were sampled from a wind farm development project in the British sector of the North Sea. This data was then analyzed and presented through a descriptive statistic. The results showed a distribution of 21.21% value-adding (VA) and 50.09% non-value-adding (NVA) hours. With 20.9% of the total hours, the weather is the dominant cause of waiting time, followed by vessels and previous tasks. The findings further show the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on productivity. It supports and expands on existing knowledge of causes for waiting time in offshore wind projects, ultimately providing the industry with an understanding of areas that need development to enhance productivity. The paper contributes to current knowledge by providing an understanding of productivity in offshore wind projects. • Waiting is 50.09% the dominant activity in offshore wind projects. • Seventeen delaying factors lead to waiting. • COVID-19 disruptions negatively impact productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated productivity in an offshore wind project to understand the distribution of their value-adding and non-value-adding hours. A comprehensive literature review presented results on productivity in regular mega-projects, revealing a limited knowledge of offshore wind projects. From the first quarter of 2019 to the early second quarter of 2020, 62,447 realized activities, equaling 213,786 h, were sampled from a wind farm development project in the British sector of the North Sea. This data was then analyzed and presented through a descriptive statistic. The results showed a distribution of 21.21% value-adding (VA) and 50.09% non-value-adding (NVA) hours. With 20.9% of the total hours, the weather is the dominant cause of waiting time, followed by vessels and previous tasks. The findings further show the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on productivity. It supports and expands on existing knowledge of causes for waiting time in offshore wind projects, ultimately providing the industry with an understanding of areas that need development to enhance productivity. The paper contributes to current knowledge by providing an understanding of productivity in offshore wind projects. • Waiting is 50.09% the dominant activity in offshore wind projects. • Seventeen delaying factors lead to waiting. • COVID-19 disruptions negatively impact productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The effect of the lockdown due to COVID-19 on the Italian power system are discussed. • A critical analysis of the reduction in the Italian power consumption and electricity cost in 2020 is presented. • Some countermeasures against the effect of generation and load reduction are proposed. • A blockchain-based architecture for Demand Response is proposed as a countermeasure. The paper analyses the dramatic effects of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Italian power system, considering the impacts on load and generation, market issues and ancillary services provision. During the period between March and May 2020, the Italian scenario was considered as exemplary due to the large reduction of loads and thermal generation caused by the hard lockdown across the Country. Italy has experienced the most severe effects of pandemic in terms of increase of death rates and of pressure on the health system as well as severity of the countermeasures. As a domino effect, the total lockdown of one of the most industrialized countries in the world has created an emergency situation that has put a big stress on the power system, reducing the possibility for the system to recover under contingencies. The weakness of the system in such an extreme situation is analyzed in depth using open data, while some countermeasures for providing resilience to the power systems in such cases are analyzed in simulation. Two technologies are here considered as exemplary countermeasures for providing resilience to the Italian power system: Fast Frequency Response by Photovoltaic and Wind plants with rated power above 10 MVA and the massive implementation of Demand Response programs through Energy communities and aggregation using Blockchain technology. The simulations show, on one hand, that the frequency recovery under contingency seems compromised in the current situation and that the support from such innovative technologies can provide a significant relief bringing the operational features close to those before the COVID-19 pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]