ONYX Insight, provider of predictive maintenance solutions, has launched Get Ready for the Windy Season, a campaign to inspire operators to take a three-step predictive maintenance approach to ensure their wind-turbine fleets are optimized for the windy season and reduce unexpected downtime during the winter.
In the U.S. and Europe, April-September is when the wind is less consistent and has a reduced speed. This is the time for wind owner-operators to do the groundwork and to complete as much maintenance and repairs as possible, ensuring turbines are primed for when the wind is more intense, and profitability is greatest.
Time spent offline during the windy season can have significant impacts. For example, more than 58 percent of wind-farm operational expenditure can be attributed to operation and maintenance costs, 65 percent of which are unplanned.
ONYX Insight works proactively with wind-farm owner-operators using a combination of predictive maintenance solutions such as advanced analytics, data, and engineering, encouraging them to implement a three-step process in a bid to streamline their operations and avoid unplanned stoppages during high wind times.
Step One: Getting wind asset data in order is the first step on the journey to peak performance. Aging wind sites may not have CMS systems, or ones that enable them to make better decisions or put in place a predictive maintenance strategy. It allows asset managers to access and interpret this data, improving real-world performance.
Step Two: Prioritize urgent issues. Using solid data and analysis, owner-operators can detect the most serious damage, fix it, and extend the life of turbine assets.
Step Three: Get your turbines fit for the future. Operators should get ahead of the game by ensuring their turbines are fit for the future thanks to a simplified engineering approach to maintenance rather than a nominal, scheduled or reactive approach that can potentially miss issues.
ONYX Insight is a market leader in providing CMS, with the company collecting data directly from more than 14,000 turbines across 30 countries across the globe.
“With a greater onus being placed on renewable energies, we want to ensure wind operators are well equipped to meet growing demand for clean power head-on,” said Bruce Hall, Onyx Insight CEO. “A key part of this is helping them to reduce asset downtime, as well as maintenance costs.” “Not only can early intervention prevent extended periods of turbine downtime, but it can also extend the lifespan of assets,” said Evgenia Golysheva, Onyx Insight VP of strategy and marketing.
By working with wind-farm operators, we can help them to effectively fix their turbines while the sun is shining. By doing so, it helps ensure we all benefit as much as possible from the enormous generating potential of wind power.”
More info onyxinsight.com
