A brand new hardware-free platform for maximising wind turbine well being and availability – Windscope – launched on 10 October, following a profitable 9-month beta testing part.
The platform, developed by the info science and engineering group behind industrial AI firm Ada Mode, is designed to deliver superior well being monitoring expertise to asset managers and engineers within the wind vitality sector, empowering them to shortly scale up their predictive upkeep methods with no requirement for {hardware} set up.
Turbine monitoring and AI-driven predictive upkeep aren’t new ideas for wind farm homeowners and operators as they search to minimise downtime, maximise manufacturing and lengthen the operational lifetime of their property. Nonetheless, quite a few obstacles proceed to frustrate the ambitions of asset managers to roll out superior well being monitoring approaches throughout their fleets.
“One of many predominant complications for operators lies in integrating a big selection of disparate knowledge streams to achieve a full oversight of their generators’ situation and efficiency,” stated Joe Donnelly, CEO, Windscope. “That is significantly difficult in multi-technology portfolios, the place bodily Situation Monitoring Techniques (CMS) have both been put in as a part of a earlier marketing campaign or should be put in to help the deployment of a brand new software program platform.”
“One other large hurdle lies in the way in which key efficiency knowledge might be siloed between the turbine producer (OEM), the Impartial Service Supplier (ISP) and the asset supervisor. Lack of collaboration between stakeholders within the O&M course of places a spanner within the works relating to performing preventative upkeep earlier than failures happen, growing turbine availability, and supporting protected planning of upkeep actions.”
Windscope, constructed by engineers with first-hand expertise managing upkeep programmes throughout each wind and nuclear energy, goals to put the muse for a profitable, scalable predictive O&M technique.
The intuitive software program platform requires no further {hardware}, eliminating the downtime and expense concerned in putting in monitoring gear, whereas being able to making use of AI to present SCADA and CMS techniques. Equally, the place work order administration techniques exist, Windscope knowledge might be shortly built-in into present software program techniques and interfaces.
As such, the platform might be up and operating in as little as 2 weeks, giving asset administration groups entry to granular insights that allow them to determine rising points, prioritise upkeep actions and report again to their inside and exterior stakeholders. In flip, this enhanced knowledge entry can empower extra collaborative and clear relationships between the asset supervisor, the OEM and the ISP.
For beta person Ventient Vitality, Windscope proved profitable in figuring out quite a few points together with Gearbox, Convertor/Transformer and Sensor faults, a few of which might not in any other case have been caught earlier than failure. Windscope additionally proved invaluable as a way of reporting turbine situation in day-to-day communication with the engineering group and ISP – finally decreasing the general burden on the asset supervisor.
Following these profitable trials, Ventient Vitality is now utilizing Windscope on a long-term foundation to help its preventative upkeep actions at quite a few UK wind farms.
“Managing an unlimited and technologically various wind turbine fleet calls for a dynamic strategy to asset administration. Because of this, we’re constantly enhancing our upkeep methods to optimise our time and assets,” said John Morris, Head of Asset Administration (UK) at Ventient Vitality. “We’ve been significantly impressed by Windscope’s component-level monitoring strategy, which has confirmed very worthwhile in figuring out and addressing numerous rising faults. Moreover, the system has performed an important position in promptly escalating these points to our engineering group and ISP.”