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2016
Presentation
Titel
Utilizing wind-turbine failure and operating data for root-cause analysis
Titel Supplements
Presentation held at WindEurope Technology Workshop "Analysis of Operating Wind Farms", Bilbao, 14-15 April 2016
Alternative
Nutzung von Ausfall- und Betriebsdaten von Windenergieanlagen zur Ausfallursachenanalyse
Abstract
In order to achieve a further reduction of the cost of wind energy, enhancing the reliability of wind turbines plays a key role. For that purpose, it is important to systematically make use of experience and data gained on existing turbine fleets in order to direct and support the development of technical improvements: Field data cannot only reveal the main sources of unreliability and maintenance cost among the turbine components. It can also provide valuable information to shed light on the root causes and mechanisms leading to failure. Such knowledge is essential as a basis for working out effective countermeasures for the existing fleets as well as for new turbine or component developments. In this presentation, the utilization of field data for the purpose of root-cause analysis an d reliability improvement is demonstrated with examples from an ongoing project on power-converter reliability, in which 16 companies among them wind-turbine and converter manufacturers, operators and maintenance service providers - have joined forces with Fraunhofer IWES and academia in order to identify the causes and mechanisms underlying the frequent converter failures in wind turbines: Failure data derived from maintenance and spare-part records is used for weak-point analysis. The failure observations are examined with respect to possible temporal or spatial patterns. A combined analysis of failure data and operating (10min SCADA) data is carried out to assess if there are systematic differences in the operating histories of turbines with high and turbines with low converter failure rates. All results are evaluated with respect to potential indications of failure causes and mechanisms. In contrast to the classical reliability-analysis methods that typically require age or usage information of the components of interest, the approaches presented here are based on failure rates and can therefore also be applied also in cases in which such information is missing.