Underperformance due to turbulence on a Vestas V136 turbine

On our recent V136 wind farms in Sweden, we do not get the performance level that we expected. It is claimed that this is normal and due to the high turbulence at the site, but we do not see the same effect on our other Vestas wind farms in the same type of environment. This subject is still ongoing now but we have already made progress to recover some of the missing production.

Alexander Hermansson, Operations Engineer at SR Energy

Monsoon based maintenance planning

With our wind farms based in the Philippines, 70 % of our yearly production is harvested from October to April. At the end of the Southwest Monsoon period, our turbines must be in absolute top condition. To maximise our production throughout Oct-Apr we have made our annual service in the summer much more extensive with increased margins for everything. This has enabled us to completely eliminate service during the most productive period. During Oct-Apr, we have introduced 3 shifts so that technicians are close to the turbines 24 hours.

Russell Thomas, Chief Technical Advisor - Wind Operations at AC Energy

Generator Start-Up Waiting Time Reduced

Optimisation of generator start-up waiting time which therefore increases production due to increased operational time. This is based on a set of operational parameters to ensure no long term impact on the generator.

Ciarán Dennehy, Performance & Optimisation at Energia Renewables

Algorithms calculating AEP increase

Enel has created an algorithm with which they calculate AEP increase. When investing in various upgrades they agree that it is this algorithm that will decide how much they will pay for the upgrade. 

Fran Garcia, Wind Technology Line at Enel Green Power

Remote operations of our wind farms - 24/7

Being able to remotely monitor our turbines has increased our power output in several ways. We are able to remotely reset the turbines, monitor unscheduled restorage and optimise scheduled maintenance.  All in all, it has enabled us to better follow up with the OEM on production, availability and service. 

Shanmugam Saravanan, Sr. General Manager- Operation & IT at Powerica

­­Unscheduled replacement of pitch batteries

Gul Ahmed Wind Power experienced a lot of unscheduled replacement of pitch batteries. After a lot of debate with the OEM, they were told that the probable cause was the charger. The new charger did not really work. Eventually, all batteries were replaced with a new type of battery which could better resist high temperatures and this modification resulted in a considerable reduction in the unscheduled replacement of pitch batteries.

Nauman Zafar, Technical Manager at Gul Ahmed Wind Power Limited

Enabling us to get to the wind farm much faster

Our wind farm is placed far out in the countryside in South Africa. We did some calculations on how we could decrease the time getting to the wind farm and found one solution that has an ROI of 4 years and will improve our power output. We built cattle grids which reduce the time to go back and forth to the park by 30 min - every time.

Lindani Buthelezi, Technical Manager at Dorper Wind Farm

Ice detection system to improve AEP

We decided to invest in an ice detection system for our turbines in Finland. The reasoning is that the icing detection system will increase AEP by 3-5% as it will (Teemu explain what it does and how that will increase AEP). We had installed it when the wind farm was built and we can therefore not do any before and after measurements. We will present our reasoning and are curious about further input from the audience. 

Teemu Vekkeli, Technical Manager at Eurus Energy

Ice roofs - enabling WTG access during icing conditions

There used to be high production losses at one of our wind farms in Northern Sweden during icing conditions, due to WTGs not being safely accessible to manually reset simple alarms. After installing ice roofs on the WTGs to ensure safe access, these losses have been significantly reduced. The estimated payback time for the investment is approximately 5 years.

Fredrik Bjarnegård, Senior Asset Manager Onshore Wind på Vattenfall

Blade Angle Asymmetry Adjustment

The method is already implemented in CEZ Wind Farm and had a very good outcome. From 240 turbines, a number of 45 turbines were found with blade angle asymmetry (aprox.20% of turbines). After the adjustment, we estimate a 4,5 GWh of AEP (approx.2 % of an average AEP of 1,2 TWh).

Dragos Sopoglu, Engineering Department Manager at CEZ

Yield improvement by deploying Lidar

Presenting how we applied LIDAR, which potentials were found and which actions were taken and in which way and how much it increased our power output.

Market-based Wind Operations - Increase Money Output

Casa dos Ventos in Brazil is taking it one step further - they focus on the money. They are running market-based wind operations. In their maintenance planning, they include both their wind forecasts and the forecasts of electricity pricing. The goal is a strategy that optimises the money earned from operations.

Raphael Fernandes Sales Costa, O&M Performance Engineer at Casa dos Ventos

Discovering an inadvertent change in settings

Not having control over your settings can be very expensive. Yet it is very difficult as these settings to some extent can be a black box for the wind asset owner. Based on gutfeel we hired a very experienced external consultant to perform this task for us. This knowledgeable woman found an inadvertent change in settings that had decreased our power output for several years. 

Mark Hachey, Plant Manager at Engie

Cold weather return to service

Following a grid outage during cold weather (commonly -40C), turbines will take an inconsistent and excessively long time to return to service automatically, largely due to some heaters not turning on until controllers reach 0C. By better informing the crews responding to these situations of how the turbines warm-up, combined with adjusting which heaters are controlled by what systems, this problem has been largely mitigated.

Robert Suttis, Senior Mechanical Asset Engineer, Renewables at Capital Power

Copper caps to mitigate lightning damages

Utah Associated Municipal Power Systems (UAMPS) installed copper caps on all of their Vestas V100 turbine blades for lightning damage prevention. This site is one of the most prevalent lightning strike areas in the United States. To date, since the installation of the caps, they have not recorded any lightning damage significant enough to require any repair of the blades. They are still getting the strikes, but without the damage to the blades.