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WindESCo, a pioneer in increasing asset performance and dependability for wind turbine stakeholders, has deployed its cutting-edge FIND, FIX, MEASURETM SaaS analytics solution at CEZ’s 600MW Fantanele-Cogealac wind farm in Romania. The solution will enhance turbine performance and dependability, reverse efficiency losses from ageing assets, and raise the AEP of one of Europe’s largest onshore wind farms.
It’s no secret that wind assets degrade in performance and dependability over time, necessitating large-scale intervention, decommissioning, or repowering – all of which are expensive. While ageing is an inevitable part of wind turbine life, understanding how power output steadily drops over time and then reverses that tendency is difficult. To produce maximum AEP recovery prospects, constant, in-depth, and confirmed assessments spanning hundreds to thousands of individual turbines are required.
WindESCo continuous, scalable optimisation solution for wind assets, FIND, FIX, MEASURETM (FFM), analyses high resolution SCADA to offer performance and reliability improvements without the need for extra hardware. Through 60+ continual SCADA checks from each turbine, FFM identifies problems influencing wind turbine performance. FFM then makes recommendations and instructions for correcting each anomaly, including the financial and AEP implications. Once the modifications are made, the system calculates and provides the performance gains at the turbine, site, and fleet levels in terms of both financial gain and more MWh.
Fantanele-Cogealac, which was completed in 2012, is one of Europe’s largest onshore wind farms, with 240 2.5MW GE turbines. After more than a decade of operation, its wind assets require a number of solutions to improve overall performance and dependability. While performance and reliability analytics typically require additional work hours to identify optimisation opportunities, FFM enables internal teams to leverage their key performance managers, prioritise work, and save time and money on having to add additional manpower – something that distinguishes it and completes other existing solutions implemented by such large size players.
Liviu Gavrila, Chief Generation Officer, CEZ Romania, said: “Over the past decade our wind assets at Fantanele-Cogealac have helped us reliably serve our customers with clean renewable energy. WindESCo’s solution will complete the optimization tools package implemented by our team across the years, allowing us to better manage and improve the performance of our assets.”
Ed Wagner, Chief Revenue Officer, WindESCo commented: “Our only job is to increase the AEP of underperforming wind assets both onshore like Fantanele-Cogealac and offshore. Without active monitoring of high-performance data, there is a risk that underperformance can become baked into long term production. It’s our objective to ensure that wind assets remain optimized for improved production – crucially without requiring our clients to invest in more people and further hardware technology.”
