Duke Energy Renewables, EDF Energy (project lead), ENGIE, E.ON, innogy and Kruger Energy have signed a partnership agreement that will see them share data from leading edge protection system trials on wind farms around the world to assess how they operate in different conditions and geographies. The data will be fed into a central database controlled by the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult.
Participants will use a standard inspection methodology to ensure consistency and the Catapult will then anonymise and analyse the data, providing insights into the performance of each protection system. Annual inspections will take place during the same season and reports will be centrally supplied to ORE Catapult, who will manage the access to the shared data. A minimum of three leading-edge protection systems will be compared and the data categories will include local atmospheric details such as wind speeds, rainfall and UV exposure, wind turbine type and time in operation. The joint initiative group is actively seeking new partners for the project from all onshore and offshore wind turbine suppliers and operators, including those who may already be performing trials on their wind farms.
