In the US and Europe, April-September is when the wind is less consistent and has a reduced speed. This is the time for wind owners/operators to do the groundwork and to complete as much maintenance and repairs as possible, ensuring turbines are primed for when the wind is more intense, and profitability is greatest.
Time spent offline during the windy season can have significant impacts on owner/operators. For example, more than 58 percent of windfarm operational expenditure can be attributed to operation and maintenance costs, 65 percent of which are unplanned.
The global wind O&M (operations and maintenance) market is predicted to grow from $28.12 billion in 2021 to around $53 billion by 2030 as operators seek to make turbine fleets more reliable and efficient.
Onyx Insight works proactively with wind farm owners/operators using a combination of predictive maintenance solutions such as advanced analytics, data and engineering, encouraging them to implement a three-step process in a bid to streamline their operations and avoid unplanned stoppages during high wind times.
Step One – Activate your data. Getting wind asset data in order is the first step on the journey to peak performance. Ageing wind sites may not have CMS systems, or ones that are enabling them to make better decisions or put in place a predictive maintenance strategy. It allows asset managers to access and interpret this data, improving real-world performance.
Step Two – Prioritise essential maintenance. Using solid data and analysis to prioritise the most urgent and pressing issues, owners/operators can detect the most serious damage, fix it and extend the life of turbine assets.
Step Three – Get your turbines fit for the future. Onyx Insight is urging operators to get ahead the game by ensuring their turbines are fit for the future thanks to an optimised and simplified engineering approach to maintenance rather than a nominal, scheduled or reactive approach which can potentially miss issues.
“With a greater onus being placed on renewable energies, we want to ensure wind operators are well equipped to meet growing demand for clean power head-on” said Bruce Hall, CEO, Onyx Insight. “A key part of this is helping them to reduce asset downtime, as well as maintenance costs. Using a combination of predictive maintenance tools such as advanced data and analytics backed by engineering, wind asset owners/operators can gain crucial visibility of between 12-18 months of component health acting as an early warning sign for potential faults and enabling windfarm owners/operators to optimise fleets and schedule maintenance.”
Evgenia Golysheva, VP – Strategy & Marketing, Onyx Insight, added that not only can early intervention prevent extended periods of turbine downtime, but it can also extend the lifespan of assets.
“By working with wind farm operators we can help them to effectively fix their turbines while the sun is shining” Ms Golysheva said. “By doing so, it helps ensure we all benefit as much as possible from the enormous generating potential of wind power.”
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