Wind Farm Performance Improvement

Improving a wind farm’s performance begins with assessing the current operation, as it is important to understand what is occurring in the park, and what any potential problems are before developing a strategy to improve performance. Every park is different, so simply implementing a post-construction product that improved a similar park may not produce the desired results.

Our preferred approach is to start with a Basic Data Analysis on the available park data (SCADA and any wind measurements). One can generally derive a good understanding of the park’s performance using this data, including identifying problem turbines.

Should the performance assessment confirm there is underperformance or problematic turbines, an improvement strategy will be implemented based on the specific needs. Some examples of improvement measures include Ground Lidar Measurements to create a reference data set and further understand the site conditions and a Nacelle Lidar Campaign on selected turbines to perform various improvement activities such as yaw angle alignment, Nacelle Transfer Function (NTF) adjustment or static sector management as applicable depending on the results from the root cause analysis.

Meventus’ cooperation with both lidar providers and control system developers enables us to implement Dynamic Yaw & Pitch Control as a retrofit solution for the most common turbine models. This permanent switch to a pro-active control mechanism through upstream lidar input compared to a reactive anemometer input from behind the rotor not only allows for smart AEP improvements, but also for significant fatigue load reductions and eventual life cycle maintenance cost reductions.