Operational risk assessment of wind turbines

Abstract

This paper presents a framework for operational risk assessment of wind turbines (WTs). In the framework, a model for operational risk assessment of WT converters is established while considering the converter topological structures and the risk assessment of power modules, including insulated gate bipolar translator (IGBTs), diodes, and DC link capacitors. The WT anomaly detection is based on supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) data of wind farms. With the WT anomaly detection, a WT short-term outage estimation model is developed involving both probability of operation of WT protection relays and statistical results of WT outages. The short-term outage probability of WT converters and other important components including the gearboxes, the generators, the main bearings, and the pitch systems are integrated to evaluate the operational risk of real 1.5 MW WTs.