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- Category: Articles
A Road Map to Successful and Conclusive Wind Turbine Improvement Projects
In times of zero subsidy bids and lowest cost of energy competition in the wind industry the margins of wind farm business cases are becoming rather tight. It is not enough anymore to simply keep the availability of the wind turbines at a reliable and high level to meet the business case expectations. This paves the way for wind turbine optimisation measures to regain the losses of 5 to 15% that a wind turbine might suffer and to tap additional performance potential hidden in the turbine design. In addition, there is usually an indirect added value, as such improvement measures usually not only increase the annual energy production (AEP) but also might reduce loads and stress in the wind turbine components. This article describes which particular rotor-based, wind turbine performance optimisation measures are available today, how to validate the AEP gains and how to get support to implement AEP improvements at scale (fleetwide) by means of monitoring and data analysis platforms – in this particular case, Power Factors’ Drive platform, a technical asset management and computerised maintenance management system.By Karl Fatrdla, Power Factors and Karl Fatrdla Consulting, Austria
- Category: Articles
Urgent Need for Deeper Cross-Border CollaborationElectricity is frequently called the lifeblood of modern society, providing us with everyday comfort, security and mobility. Electricity networks are the ‘blood vessels’ which deliver the electricity to our homes, factories and trains. They have been built for over a century and evolved into the largest and most complex machine ever made by humanity.
By Alexandre Oudalov, Market Innovation, Hitachi ABB Power Grids
- Category: Articles
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Because wind turbines operate in the natural atmosphere, high-resolution weather modelling is a powerful tool to help wind energy projects succeed throughout the project life cycle. When properly applied, such modelling helps to optimise wind farms by reducing the uncertainty associated with the spatial variability of wind flow across the site. Studies have shown that the uncertainty of mesoscale modelling for wind energy, when run at microscales, is lower than that of other modelling techniques such as linear flow models and computational fluid dynamics. Key features in the underlying physics and application technique of mesoscale models compared with the other modelling methods result in higher accuracy for wind energy assessment. Those differences are described herein. Additionally, we present validation statistics for a large dataset of wind projects to explore relationships between model error and other model and site parameters.
By Gregory S. Poulos and Mark Stoelinga, ArcVera Renewables, USA
- Category: Articles
How Do We Get Beyond Blockage?The notion of wind farm blockage has recently created significant debate and raised many unanswered questions within the wind industry. Does blockage actually exist? Could it explain historical differences between pre-construction and operational yield assessments? What should we do about it? Here Frazer-Nash provides some of the latest thinking about understanding and predicting blockage.
By Graham Hawkes, Engineering Manager, Frazer-Nash Consultancy, UK
- Category: Articles
Saving Blades Using their Acoustic SignatureIt has recently been shown by the team at the University of Massachusetts Lowell that the acoustic signature generated by a turbine itself can be used to detect blade damage. This acoustics-based blade structural health monitoring approach will help minimise blade failures and lower the levelised cost of energy through a reduction in O&M costs. The proposed solution consists of low-cost, easy-to-implement acoustic sensors and a central data processing and wireless data transmission unit. The monitoring solution can be installed on both new and existing wind turbines.
By Murat Inalpolat, University of Massachusetts Lowell, USA
- Category: Articles
Understanding Best Practices for Data StandardisationENTR is an industry alliance set up to promote open-source standards within the wind sector. Among its participants are leading owner-operators, software vendors, a trade association, and a governmental organisation.
By Charles Henderson, CEO, Stacker Group, USA
- Category: Articles
Preliminary Framework for Wind Farm Siting and SizingA high cost of licensed micro-siting software, a lack of reliable ground-based wind resource data and difficulty assessing geographically morphed areas of the country make it challenging for project developers in Nepal to perform preliminary siting and tangible evaluations of large-scale wind projects. Furthermore, areas with the most promising wind resource profiles in Nepal are usually located in rural and remote regions with poor accessibility and limited aggregated geographical data, and they are often isolated from electrical grid infrastructures. As such, identification of suitable locations for developing wind projects requires complex multi-criterion analysis, which in turn requires upfront investment. This article elaborates on a necessity-driven framework for wind farm siting and sizing that can process freely available project-specific parameters, geospatial data and factual information to identify project locations and produce quantitative figures for electricity generation.
By Ayush Acharya, WindPower Nepal, Nepal
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