The report provides concrete data and insight into several related areas of O&M for wind farms.
Once a wind farm is operational, adopting a cost-effective operations and maintenance strategy is the main path for operators to maximize ROI on wind energy. However, New Energy Update‘s latest Wind Energy O&M Report 2017 found a significant difference in the performance of predictive compared to condition-based O&M strategies.
According to the report, a scoring strategy was used to measure the performance of different sensor configurations under various key component failure scenarios. The research examined 3-MW wind turbines on a 630-MW wind farm, and smaller 2-MW turbines on a 420-MW capacity wind farm.
More specifically
- A condition-based monitoring strategy using all sensors, except oil sensors, was found to be the optimal O&M strategy for a 630-MW wind farm made up of 3-MW turbines A preventive strategy was found more expensive, particularly under a high gearbox failure scenario.
- In stark contrast, for smaller 2-MW size turbines, preventive O&M strategies are more effective, while all sensor condition based strategies are more expensive.
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