Airstreams Performance Management
value and execution

We know a modern wind farm is a significant investment. Operations and Maintenance attempt to maximize the return on that investment. However, there are many ways that analytical systems performance monitoring can help insure that the wind turbines are operating optimally.

First, is in the actual monitoring of performance. The performance of the turbines can be quantified and judged to determine which turbines are low performers. By identifying low performers, on multiple criteria turbines that do not stand out on simple availability or capacity factor lists, can be found and work begun to improve their performance.

Second, many factors can be caught early allowing Operations to alleviate problems before they lead to actual losses in performance. For example, turbine orientation can decrease production if it leads to turbines not being directed into the wind. Detection of orientation problems early, could prevent significant energy losses from occurring by making repairs or adjustments before the problem becomes serious. By continual monitoring of the sensors, energy or equipment losses due to bad sensors can be minimized.

Finally, systems performance monitoring, can help with issues related to turbine reliability. Determination of problems leading to the greatest downtime losses, lead directly into investigations of the root cause of the problem. Further, by examining data from an entire site simultaneously, detection of problems occurring on multiple turbines simultaneously could lead to better understanding of any environmental conditions involved in the problem.

Monitoring of systems performance to find problem turbines and help to prevent issues from becoming problems leads to better operations and maintenance of the wind farm. This, in turn, leads to a higher return on investment by maximizing the energy production over the life of the wind farm.