Wind Farm Analytics possesses many years of experience working closely with wind turbine engineering and operations crew and we know first hand about many things which can go wrong, and what can go unnoticed. It is possible for wind turbines output to be reduced by unauthorised curtailment, turbines pointing in the wrong yaw direction, turbines having faulty parameter settings, turbines experiencing incorrect downtime for icing, turbines shutting down for high wind speeds prematurely, turbines starting up later than they should, turbines not performing to their published power curves due to degraded components, turbines having dirty blades, inappropriate turbine siting, nearby forestry, abnormal wind conditions and many other reasons.
Wind farm owners and operators can benefit massively by identifying and confirming underperforming wind turbines, investigating the reasons for such underperformance and then taking remedial action in order to eliminate the underperformance. It is possible for underperformance to persist for the entire lifetime of the wind turbine if unchecked, perhaps for 25 years. Therefore there can be cumulative revenue gains arising from early analysis and corrective measures. Why not hire us to do some performance analysis on your wind farm and check for possible revenue increases?
Quite rightly wind turbine operators often focus a lot of effort on reducing operating costs and minimising maintenance downtime with the goal of increasing availability perhaps by a percentage point. This is effort well spent because one percent of output from modern day wind farm fleets can be worth millions or tens of millions of pounds of revenue per year. However, it is rare that an equivalent level of effort is dedicated to operational data analysis. And yet it is possible for wind turbines to underperform their budgeted power curves, not just by one percent but sometimes by five percent or even twenty percent in some circumstances, and such underperformance can be quickly identified by SCADA data analysis.
Furthermore, underperformance can be symptomatic of effects which pose a threat to your generating assets. Therefore, effort spent on performance analysis will inform your operations of asset integrity risks, enabling proactive actions in order to protect your generating asset for the long term because your availability warranty period is already or nearly finished, correct? Stop thinking short term! Asset owners or shareholders want those wind turbines to operate with high availability for 25 years maybe.
Wind Farm Analytics knows how to process, analyse and interpret your SCADA data in order to get more out of your wind turbines. Your operational SCADA data is gold dust and we urge you to dedicate resources in order to exploit it properly. It would be a mistake to ignore this powerful operational tool. Please get in touch in order to discuss a range of operational data analysis services we can offer:
- fleet power curve surveys identifying abnormal performance, underperformance, curtailment and other features indicated by SCADA data including identification of changes in time and differences from turbine to turbine;
- detailed wind farm asset performance analysis against budget including monthly or other breakdown of the component reasons for deviation from budget such as availability, grid outage, wind conditions, overperformance, underperformance and curtailment, etc;
- energy yield impact estimation to evaluate the efficiency impact of particular events such as blade cleaning or turbine parameter changes;
- SCADA data investigations to evaluate the impact of downtime due to particular wind turbine component or outage types;
- LIDAR investigations in order to check whether the turbines are being subjected to abnormal wind conditions causing significant underperformance, due to complex terrain, nearby forestry or other reasons;
- strategic management consultancy and business planning on how to supervise some of the above analysis in-house including key performance indicators and prioritisation – why not hire us for a brainstorming session and report giving recommendations on what you can do to improve your performance monitoring?
Are you sure your turbines are pointing in the right direction?