Wood Group’s clean energy business has provided a control solution to improve the performance of for EDF EN Mexico's La Mata y La Ventosa wind farm located in Oaxaca, Mexico. The company was appointed to investigate the performance of the 27 Clipper C89 wind turbines at the 67.5MW site, where high turbulence and high wind speeds required some turbines to be run in a reduced power mode.
After identifying gearbox wear as a design driver, the engineering team began working on a solution in October 2016. Together with Romax Technologies, they analysed the effect of various deratings on the drivetrain to help determine the best course of action. An automatic derating system, which minimises damage in extreme wind conditions and otherwise optimises production, was selected as the best solution to meet the objective. The solution was designed as an upgrade to the current controller and was provided as a firmware update, simply requiring upload to the turbines, with no additional hardware.
