"Efficient wind farm management presents distinct challenges, given changes in ambient conditions and loads characteristic of wind," says SmartSignal CEO Jim Gagnard.
Invenergy owns and operates just such a fleet in the U.S., along with other clean energy generation facilities in North America and Europe. To help maintenance personnel track multiple sensor signals at each site, the firm selected SmartSignal Corp. (smartsignal.com) to install SmartSignal EPI*Center Predictive Diagnostic software, which will be “watching” all 975 GE 1.5 MW turbines at all Invenergy U.S. wind generation projects from one centralized location. The rollout comes after a collaboration between the two companies along with a three-month test drive at Invenergy’s Forward site in Wisconsin. The agreement calls for SmartSignal to deploy, maintain, and provide support services for EPI*Center, which will be hosted by Invenergy.
The predictive diagnostic software detects developing mechanical and instrumentation failures for its wind customers. The company develops personalized empirical models for all turbines, each of which is composed of a sophisticated combination of interrelationships of all related sensors that affect turbine performance. These unique turbine models automatically adapt to fluctuations in wind speed, direction, shear, turbulence from ambient conditions, and equipment performance. In real time, the monitoring system analyzes all the data collected in the nacelle–literally tens of thousands of data points daily on a typical wind farm–and detects and notifies wind farms of impending problems, letting owners focus on fixing problems early and efficiently. SmartSignal initiated Predictive Diagnostics for equipment health in the power generation industry. Its solutions protect equipment in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America–in wind, coal, combined cycle, hydro, and nuclear power plants.
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