Lowering The Cost of Energy Production With Wind Turbine Sensors
Wind currently provides just 5% of the world’s electricity (a total of 0.6TW, to be precise), but scientists and engineers expect this figure to grow substantially over the next few decades. By 2050, many experts estimate that wind turbines will be responsible for generating at least 50% of global electricity.
Critical to this goal will be improvements to the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of wind turbine technologies.
Lowering the Cost of Wind Energy Production
Wind turbine design has evolved significantly since the earliest prototypes. Redesigns and evolutions have continuously led to larger, more powerful turbines that generate more energy per dollar spent on the machinery itself. The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) reports that the average size of a wind turbine surpassed 2,750 KW in 2019 (a 72% increase vs. the previous decade).
The reasoning is simple: bigger turbines cost more to build individually, but much less as a collective wind farm. Fewer, larger turbines drastically reduce the overall complexity and construction costs of the farm. Design evolutions have also focused on optimizing the shape and materials of the turbine blades and other components for efficiency.
However, many industry players believe that size and shape can only go so far. Structural changes have reached a point where further improvements will be incremental at best. Where is the industry to turn next? In short: intelligent sensors.
Wind Turbine Maintenance Keeps Costs in Check
More wind turbines reach the conclusion of their original manufacturer’s warranties every year. This has brought wind turbine maintenance to the forefront of the conversation. When turbines lose their warranty, owners must pay for maintenance directly.
The operation and maintenance costs of a wind farm can be substantial, too, at $42,000 to $48,000 per year for typical O&M. The failure of any single critical component can cause significant downtime and increase overall energy production costs by reducing the time that turbines are making money.
Advanced Wind Turbine Sensors
Earlier condition monitoring systems focused on the largest or most expensive components (the main bearing, gearbox, and generator), but advanced sensor networks — such as TurboTrack — are now deployed throughout the turbine to extend its service life and predict maintenance needs.
Rotary torque and strain sensors, vibration sensors, temperature sensors, and more can amass valuable data on transient torque events, thermal performance changes, or other measurements indicative of stress and degradation. These insights reduce the need for reactive or preventative maintenance outages, in favor of more cost-effective predictive wind turbine maintenance.
When you have clear insights into the health of a turbine, you can reduce unnecessary expenses that balloon the total cost of energy production. A wind turbine nacelle located in an offshore wind farm would be difficult to access at the best of times, requiring a crewed and stocked repair vessel even for routine check-ups. Sensors enable you to avoid both unscheduled maintenance outages and unnecessary ones.
Savings Are Substantial
Intelligent sensor technology not only keeps wind farm operators apprised of maintenance needs but helps machines operate more efficiently — potentially increasing the farm’s annual energy production by 4-8%. For a larger wind farm with hundreds of megawatts of capacity, that’s a dramatic increase in output. Every one-megawatt turbine generates $60,00 – $175,000 in yearly revenue. More hours in efficient, healthy operation = more revenue and lower energy production costs.
Get in touch with the team at Sensatek to learn more about our groundbreaking TurboTrack sensor system and how it can lower your wind turbine maintenance costs.