EWEA Analysis of Operating Wind Farms 2014

Sweden Malmo Dec 2014

How to find underperforming turbines in an

operating wind farm

Xu Jia
LongYuan Power Wind Energy Overview/Portfolio

>12 GW Wind Energy >9000 Wind Turbines >140Wind Farms

27 Different Turbine Manufacturers 77 Models

Investment, Design, Development, Construction, Management, Operation, O&M service.

Owner maintained more than 75% turbines in China

What we use SCADA data for

Benchmark analysis of
Group
provincial company KPI

Benchmark analysis of
Liaoning … Canada
wind farms KPI

Turbine by turbine
Heping … Changtu Prufflin
analysis

Turbine power curve distribution In a wind farm

Turbine availability distribution In a wind farm
16 12
January2014
70 14
10
60 12
8
50 10
Count

8 6
Count

40
30 6
4
20 4
2
10 2

0 0 0
80% 82% 84% 86% 88% 90% 92% 94% 96% 98% 100%
Availability
NPC AEP/AVg NPC AEP
Results for one wind farm
Power curve bias definition

Warranted Power Curve Bias

IEC Power curve measurement VS Warranted power curve
Power Curve Consistency Bias
Turbine power curve VS wind farm average power curve
Power Curve Reliability Bias
Temporary performance degradation (scatter)
IEC61400-12-1 test

100%

80%

60%

40%

20%

0%
Potential Curtailment Design Power Power Curve Power Curve Down time Actual SCADA Data analysis
Production Loss Curve Bias Consistency Reliability loss Production
Bias Bias
Power Curve Analysis

This is a typical wind speed vs power scatter graph, it contained some noise data:

The noise is valuable, some data didn’t contain de-rating status

Components working at limit condition;
Aerodynamic performance degradation;
Generators encoder slip, others…

Pitch angle

Gearbox oil
tempereture

Data Mining
Power Curve Reliability Analysis
Analysis Summary

History 10min Data

Find Normal Data and Abnormal Data

Normal Data Abnormal Data

Normal Power Curve Data Mining Root Cause of Derating

Reliability Energy Loss Production Base Availability

Power Curve Monitoring Comparison of Relative

Limits Root Cause of Deterioration
Power Curve

Run Time Data Power Curve Monitoring

Results: source of under-performance
Database 775 Turbines 23 Wind Farms

23 Wind farms distribution of Percentage of

underperformance turbines in a wind farm
8
Average 36% (All farms)
7
Average 25% (Exclude several specials)
6
5
4
3
2
1
0
10%

100%
5%

15%
20%
25%
30%
35%
40%
45%
50%
55%
60%
65%
70%
75%
80%
85%
90%
95%
• The worst wind farm: 90% turbines are underperformance, 31 turbines underperformance of 33
turbines in the wind farm.
• The time-availability of this farm is 98%.
Results: source of under-performance

Percentage of underperformance source

2,4%
6,8% 7,4%

27,7%
8,6%

22,4%
24,8%

Wind vane misalignment/Sensor error Components height temperature

Controller parameter issue Pitch misalignment
Controller software version issue Converter
Others

• Wind measurement systems, component high temperature, controller parameter errors are
top three source of under-performance
• 75% of under-performance due to them
Range of power curve loss due to maintenance

Wind vane misalignment: -0%~-25% depend on misalignment

1600 280 8
248 244 249
1400 6,65 6,7 6,52 219 6,39 6,73 7
1200 230

Wind speed（m/s）
Production(10MW)
174 6
Power(kw)

1000 180
5
800
600
B4-12 130 4
400 3
80
200 2
30
0 1
2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
Wind speed（m/s） -20 B4_10(162) B4_11(163) B4_12(164) B4_13(165) B4_15(167) 0

Commonality, turbines without

horizontal boom in the wind
measure system, appear the high
frequency to wind vane
misalignment.
Lack of visual reference
Range of power curve loss due to maintenance
Components overheat 0%~-25% - Summer
Region specific - Sand/Catkins
Manufacturer specific – Low dirt holding capacity
Years specific
- Appeared in the 3rd operating year
- Dirt accumulation/Pressure valve broken
Cooling fin hard to clean, the maintenance engineer evade the clean work
Range of power curve loss due to maintenance

Blade dirt : General -0.5%~-1% Some case -10%

time Power curve weather
P1 04.01-04.14 Deterioration Cloud
P2 04.15-04.19 Up Heavy rain
P3 04.20-04.24 Deterioration Cloud
P4 04.25-04.30 Up Rain
P5 05.01-05.09 Deterioration Sunning
P6 05.10-05.11 Disarray Heavy rain
P7 05.12-05.30 Up Sunning
P8 6.01 Disarray Heavy rain
P9 06.02-06.14 Up Cloud
*-Weather data source www.tianqi.com

Main reason is this blade

model sensitive to
environment

Blade after heavy rain Blade before heavy rain

Range of power curve loss due to maintenance

Pitch angle misalignment/Blade

zero position error: 0%-10%

Misalignment specific

Blade damage: -0.5%~-2%

Damage position specific

9000

8000

A07优 化 前
7000 A07优 化 后

6000

5000
Controller software version error: Case by case
转矩

4000

3000

2000
Controller parameter error: Case by case
1000

0
900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900
转速
Conclusions

• Poor maintenance is a source of under-performance in almost every wind farm

• 75% of under-performance is due to wind measurement systems, component high
temperature, controller parameter errors
• Some wind vane models are easy to get loose and not easy to correct due to poor design
• With increasing years of operation, component overheating will grow, especially in sand and
catkins region
• Manufactures should improve design to facilitate maintenance work
• We expect to have a power curve monitoring function in SCADA system
• Analysing the wind data and enhance the maintenance work could improve the production at
little cost.
 Question?
Xu Jia
xujia@clypg.com.cn