Abstract
The past decade has seen exponential yearly growth in installed capacity wind energy power generation. As a result, wind farm (WF) projects have evolved from small scale isolated installations into complex utility scale power generation systems comprising of arrays of large wind turbines (WTs), which are designed to operate in harsh environments. However, this has increased the need for through-life engineering service (TES) for WTs especially in offshore applications, where the operations and maintenance (O&M) becomes more complicated as a result of the harsh marine weather and environmental conditions. In this paper, a generic methodology to benchmark TES in industries is presented and used to assess TES in the wind industry. This was done by identifying the current state-of-the-art in methods and applications, requirements and needs, challenges, and opportunities of TES in the wind sector. Furthermore an illustrative case study on WT gearbox through-life support is presented demonstrating how some of the core aspects, such as remote condition monitoring, can be used to aid the in-service support of wind turbine gearboxes.
Highlights
Renewable and alternative energy technologies have developed from very small scale R&D projects to commercial technologies, contributing to the global energy and power generation mix [1]
Wind farm (WF) projects have evolved from small scale isolated installations into complex utility scale power generation systems comprising of arrays of large wind turbines (WTs), which are designed to operate in harsh environments
This paper has presented a methodology through which through-life engineering service (TES) can be benchmarked for a manufacturing organisation or relevant industrial sector
Summary
Renewable and alternative energy technologies have developed from very small scale R&D projects to commercial technologies, contributing to the global energy and power generation mix [1]. This paper is in two parts: the first half explores the original topic of TES in the wind industry, presented by the authors in an earlier publication [1], by identifying the state-of-the-art and current challenges of TES in the wind industry. The second half presents a case study on WT gearbox through-life support, which takes further previous work by the authors (see [1]) by going through the key steps of identifying the TES requirements and needs and its implementation. This paper proposes an approach for benchmarking TES presented as a methodology (identifying the current state – defining the requirements and needs – identifying challenges – designing implementation) which can be applied to other industries that looking to explore the adoption of TES. One particular issue dealt with in this paper is the use of remote monitoring as a key enabler for the continuous learning and optimisation of WTs in a TES context
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