Larger and more efficient turbines will be the key to reducing the levelised cost of energy in the wind power industry, according to a survey by Onyx InSight.
Onyx said over 80% of asset and operations managers attending its European Wind Turbine Technical Symposium in June backed the statement on turbine size.
However, 79% of delegates said there was a need for higher-quality data to improve the reliability of hardware.
Attendees also agreed on the importance of accurately predicting when gearbox components might fail and securing longer lead times to allow for proactive repair or replacement, Onyx said.
But more than half questioned whether owners and operators were taking advantage of the turbine data already available, either through a lack of access or inability to integrate the data into an organisation.
Onyx Insight head of consultancy Evgenia Golysheva said: “A new generation of larger, more advanced turbines will mean more complex machinery, operating in harsher operating conditions around the world.
“But it’s a mistake to think that all of these new technologies will be more reliable than their predecessors thanks to lessons learned from older designs, or that operating costs will reduce naturally as the industry matures without increased understanding and streamlining of operations and maintenance processes.
“The complexity of new, larger turbine designs, combined with an increasingly short design and prototype stage and challenges to the supply chain, means that an optimised approach to operations and maintenance is required to ensure technicians can meet the challenges presented by new failure modes.”
Onyx InSight is a joint venture between Romax Technology and Castrol.
Image: reNEWS
Big turbines ‘key to cost cutting’
By EBS