Economic Viability Analytics for Wind Energy Maintenance Management

Abstract

The rising wind energy in addition to the increasing number of failures of the larger wind turbines makes necessary the reduction of costs in this industry to make it more competitive in this sector. For this propose the wind energy industry is focused on the reduction of the operation and maintenance (O&M) costs. Condition Monitoring Systems (CMS) are probably the most effective approach to minimize O&M cost and substantially improve the availability, reliability and safety of wind turbines by early detection of the faults. On the other hand, CMS is usual a complex task for any firm because it requires a set of sensors and data acquisition systems to monitor different parameters of the wind turbines. It also requires knowledge and expertise to interpret the large volume of data collected from the wind turbines. In this research work is studied the economic feasibility of a CMS in a wind turbine. The main objective of this work is the development of a life cycle cost (LCC) model for a CMS on wind turbines, being applied to a real case study in Germany. Previously, a review of the literature is realized to describe the state of the art for the economic viability analysis of CMS in wind turbines. This study reveals that the return of the investment depends on the net present value factor, the interest rate of a credit bank and the reduction of failures and energy losses of the wind turbines using CM.