As the use of offshore wind as a renewable energy source increases, it is important to carefully analyse how remote monitoring can be used to improve operations and maintenance of offshore wind turbines while lowering costs, enhancing access reliability, and enhancing worker health and safety. There is a great deal of opportunity to lower the levelized cost of electricity through the real-time gathering, transport, and analysis of data about the state of the sea as well as through monitoring the structural integrity of wind turbines and each of their individual systems and components (LCOE). The use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs), which can track the functioning of individual components of a wind turbine like temperature and vibrations or the system as a whole, has increased thanks to improvements in computational power and the increasing connectivity of sensor networks through the Internet of Things (IoT) and digital twin.
While making progress in each of these areas
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Connectivity
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Equipment calibration
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Use of sensors
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Data access
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Data volume
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Standardisation of alarms;
can reduce or even eliminate the need for maintenance visits and increase the effectiveness and efficiency of those trips abroad, it is important to remember the importance of setting up a solid foundation and operating model in order to fully utilise digital. In order to improve communication between wind farms and the operations centre, these opportunities include adding Wi-Fi and 5G, investing in domain and analytics knowledge to identify asset health issues, fostering end-user centricity, and utilising the best change-management strategy.
Wind operators are no longer able to postpone action. Although O&M can currently account for 40% of offshore wind LCOE, by concentrating on implementing improved digital capabilities in the most pertinent areas, considerable advancements can be made that will lower the price of electricity. A stronger emphasis on cloud platforms and digital application capabilities for O&M operations to save costs while enhancing productivity is essential to this endeavour.
With sensor technology able to continuously supply data on the performance of turbines, the development of the digital twin and internet of things (IoT) has the potential to offer major advantages to offshore wind power maintenance.
Want to know more? Do not miss the opportunity to join the Windpower Data and Digital Innovation Forum where we will be discussing Digital Twin and IoT for Offshore Wind O&M.
To register or learn more about the Forum please check here: https://bit.ly/3TJzA5b
For more information and group participation, contact us: [email protected]
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