WindESCo unveils new technology to transform wind farm operations
Published by Bella Weetch,
Editorial Assistant
Energy Global,
WindESCo, a pioneer in accelerating annual energy production (AEP) for wind turbine stakeholders, has launched WindESCo Swarm™ – one of the world’s first commercially available, patented solutions for autonomous, co-operative control of wind assets.
Taking cues from nature, and the intuitive decision-making of birds in flight, WindESCo Swarm™ is set to unlock millions of dollars for wind asset owners by enabling turbines to co-operatively adjust positioning to boost production for the entire farm – not just single machines – by 3 - 5% annually. For a typical 1 GW wind plant, this would translate to in excess of US$20 million (€17 million) over a five year period.
Accelerating AEP is a key issue for wind industry stakeholders. Until now, available solutions sought to optimise wind assets on a turbine-by-turbine basis. This approach can deliver incremental improvements for asset owners, but does not reflect the complex reality of wind farm operations and is insufficient to address the fleet-wide losses of between 5 - 20% of potential power production which are common to the industry.
WindESCo Swarm™ is one of the first off-the-shelf solutions that connects and creates a shared understanding between turbines. It allows turbines to know what is happening at neighbouring assets, along with the direction, strength and any shifts in wind resource, to change their operational profiles and optimise the swarm instead of individual machines. By understanding how their operation is impacting the performance of the site at large, WindESCo Swarm™ enables wind assets to take predictive, protective and proactive turbine control measures for maximised fleet-wide production.
The platform combines hardware and software as an integrated system to help owners unlock value by allowing turbines to communicate with and learn from each other. To develop the system, WindESCo used a multidisciplinary approach combining the fields of turbine loads, controls, meteorology, sensing and machine learning. The system has been developed with three years of concentrated investment. The first commercial implementation on three wind plants with over 300 MW of capacity is underway in North America. It is currently being offered as a repowering solution that is compatible with most turbine OEMs and models.
For more news and technical articles from the global renewable industry, read the latest issue of Energy Global magazine.
Energy Global's Autumn 2021 issue
The Autumn issue of Energy Global features a varied spectrum of in-depth technical articles detailing recent projects, future projections, and technological advancements in the renewables sector, from companies including MISTRAS Group, Fugro, X1 Wind, Sulzer, and more.
Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/wind/27102021/windesco-unveils-new-technology-to-transform-wind-farm-operations/
You might also like
GHS and BWSC sign collaborative agreement on green hydrogen projects
Green Hydrogen Systems A/S and BWSC have reached an agreement on strategic collaboration to expand their current collaboration on advancing green hydrogen projects.