Recent advancements in condition monitoring systems for wind turbines: A review

Abstract

The reduction of operation and maintenance costs as well as the improvement of reliability of wind energy conversion systems are of top priorities in the renewable energy industry as the demand for wind energy continuously grow tremendously. With that, the condition monitoring system (CMS) plays a crucial role in maximizing the potential of wind energy in generating electricity. Therefore, this review paper vividly captures the fact that the recent advancements in embedded control in CMS in wind energy conversion systems are able deliver tangible benefits to the renewable energy technology (RET) industry as a whole. It is proven that CMS based maintenance is deemed to be more suitable in multiple aspects with fewer drawbacks, as compared to scheduled and corrective maintenance. In this review paper, an attempt to evaluate the viability of CMS is being made. The main purpose is to shed some light on the significant contributions provided by CMS in shortening the downtime and increasing the production rate of the wind energy conversion system. Forthcoming promising applications with good potential to surpass the recent dilemmas were also explored and analyzed at the end of this paper.