Kinden Corporation’s 30 MW Shirama wind farm, a seven-year-old project near Osaka, expects the digital solution will increase the site’s annual energy production (AEP) by up to 5 percent. A second contract, signed with Kandenko, is expected to deliver up to 2 percent higher AEP for the 22 MW Chosi project, a twelve-year-old wind farm near Tokyo.
“Our Digital Wind Farm concept is starting to gain traction all over the world” said Anne McEntee, President & CEO of GE’s Onshore Wind business. “These two projects in Japan are great examples of our lifecycle approach to services—we are using data and analytics to create new value from older machines.”
The Chosi wind farm was originally commissioned in 2004 and consists of 15 units of GE’s 1.5s wind turbine. The site will use GE’s Prognostics and PowerUp Services software applications to implement a turbine performance enhancement strategy involving, among other adjustements, fine tuning of the pitch angle according to the site’s real-world operating conditions. The resulting data will help the team analyse current and historical performance. It will also help predict the remaining useful life of key components in the ageing machines. The Kandenko team expects the new technology to boost revenue by up to $650,000 over the remaining lifetime of the project.
Kinden Corporation’s 30 MW Shirama project near Osaka is made up of 20 units of GE’s 1.5sle wind turbines. This site was first commissioned in 2009 and will also receive GE’s Prognostics and PowerUpServices applications, implementing software and hardware enhancements that utilise a new blade clearance operation mode. This will help the turbines run more efficiently and increase overall plant production by up to 5 percent.
GE’s Digital Wind Farm concept extends to a wide variety of existing turbine models, and the apps are also compatible with the company’s new 2 MW and 3 MW wind turbines. In May, the company unveiled a new suite of Digital Wind Farm applications that were developed to enhance production and improve wind farm profitability. The programs are built on the Predix software platform, the foundation for all GE’s Industrial Internet applications, and include its specialized cyber security protection for operational technology.
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