GE recently announced PowerUp, a customized software-enabled platform that will increase a wind farm’s output by up to 5 percent taking into account environmental conditions. For the average U.S. wind farm operator using GE’s 1.5-77 turbine, a five percent increase in energy output translates to up to a 20 percent increase in profit per turbine. PowerUp is available for turbine models across GE’s installed base.
“To put things in perspective, today our customers have more than 9,000 GE 1.5-77 turbines running in the United States,” Anne McEntee, president and CEO of GE’s renewable energy business, said at the announcement. “Even a 1 percent energy output increase on this installed base would generate more than 420,000 megawatt hours of additional energy each year, which would provide the equivalent power used by 33,000 average U.S. homes”.
When PowerUp is activated, a GE software program performs a complete before-and-after wind farm power performance analysis, validating the performance improvement. By adjusting performance dials that include speed, torque, pitch, aerodynamics and turbine controls, PowerUp seeks to maximize the power output of a wind farm.
For more information, visit www.ge-energy.com.
