Description
Windpower generation systems have been increasing in complexity and securing their proper operation and maintenance is a challenge. The problems and costs associated with failures and shutdowns, and the difficulty to access offshore wind farms, raised the need to address the operation and maintenance (O&M) systems. This requires a predictive approach, and ORBITAL plans to carry out a project with the overall goal of eliminating 20% of the outage time of wind turbines. This will reduce O&M costs and therefore the cost of generating the energy. This will lead to an increase in the efficiency and profitability of wind farms. To this end, ORBITAL proposes the development of a critical and open solution for real-time remote condition monitoring. This will enable the continuous integration and evolution of predictive patterns for onshore and offshore wind farms from multiple sources. Thus, the project results are intended to increase the competitiveness of companies in relation to wind farm management, specially those operating offshore wind farms.
Summary of project results
ORBITAL has reached all the objectives proposed in the project. In 2015, once the communication layer was completed, a client-server architecture for the solution was developed to connect the layer of data collection with the layer of data visualization HMI. The software architecture and the communications protocol implemented have allowed the independence of the sources of data acquisition (both wired and wireless) from the HW platform obtaining a robust and versatile solution for the wind energy sector. Additionally, as validation of the development, the system was successfully deployed in a wind installation of small size.
Summary of bilateral results