WindESCo to provide performance optimisation solution for Fantanele-Cogealac wind farm

It is no secret that wind assets decline in performance and reliability over time, requiring either large scale intervention, decommissioning or repowering – all of which come at a substantial cost. While ageing is a fact of wind turbine life, understanding how power generation gradually declines over time, and subsequently reversing that trend, is complicated. It requires continuous, in-depth, and verified analyses across hundreds to thousands of individual turbines to generate maximum AEP recovering opportunities.

FFM, WindESCo’s continuous, scalable optimisation solution for wind assets, works by analysing high-resolution SCADA to deliver performance and reliability improvements, without the need for additional hardware. FFM pinpoints anomalies affecting wind turbine performance through 60+ continuous checks of the SCADA from every turbine. FFM then provides recommendations and instructions to fix each anomaly including the financial and AEP impact. Once fixes are completed, the system calculates and reports the performance improvements in both financial gain and additional MWh at the turbine, site, and fleet levels.

Commissioned in 2012, Fantanele-Cogealac is among Europe’s largest onshore wind farms and consists of 240 2.5 MW GE turbines. With over a decade in operation, its wind assets require a variety of solutions to boost overall performance and enhance reliability. While performance and reliability analytics can typically add extra work hours to pinpoint optimisation opportunities, FFM enables internal teams to leverage their key performance managers, prioritise work and subsequently save time and money on having to add additional manpower – something that sets it apart 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 optimisation 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 optimised for improved production – crucially without requiring our clients to invest in more people and further hardware technology.”

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Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/wind/20042023/windesco-to-provide-performance-optimisation-solution-for-fantanele-cogealac-wind-farm/