Assessment of the Reliability of Wind Farm Devices in the Operation Process

Abstract

The article deals with simulation tests on the reliability of the equipment of the wind farm WF in the operation process. The improvement, modernization, and introduction of new solutions that change the reliability, as well as the quality and conditions of use and operation of wind farm equipment, require testing. Based on these tests, it is possible to continuously evaluate the reliability of the equipment of WF. The issue of reliability assessment of wind farm equipment, for which intelligent systems, diagnostic systems DIAG, and Wind Power Plant Expert System (WPPES) are used to modernize the operation process, can only be tested in a simulative way. The topic of testing the reliability of complex technical objects is constantly developing in the literature. In this paper, it is assumed that the operation of wind farm equipment is described and modeled based on Markov processes. The adoption of this assumption justified the use of the Kolmogorov–Chapman equations to describe the developed model. Based on this equation, an analytically developed model of the wind farm operation process was described. The simulation analysis determines the reliability of the wind farm in terms of the availability factor Kg(t). The simulation tests are performed in two phases using the computer program LabView. In the first stage, the reliability value in the form of the readiness factor Kg(t) as a function of changes in the mean repair time value ranging {from 0.3 to 1.0} was investigated. In the second stage, the reliability value of WF devices was examined as a function of changes in the value of the average time between successive failures, ranging from 1000 to 3000 (h)}.