Supervisors - Prof. Markus Mueller, University of Edinburgh and Dr. Calum Cossar, University of Glasgow
PhD Student - JenHao Wu, University of Edinburgh
Status - Closed
Gaia has installed over 800 of its 11kW wind turbine throughout the world. A warranty database has been established for all turbines, and recently 152 of these turbines can be monitored live over the internet. With live monitoring the wind speed, voltage, current and power are recorded. The warranty database provides information on reported faults. The warranty database can be aligned to the live monitoring turbines to investigate to see if there is any correlation between the operating conditions and the resulting fault. There is a vast amount of data available, which the company could use to better understand component reliability and also to develop more informed O&M strategies. Due to lack of resource the company has not made full use of this data. Up to now most reliability studies in wind have focussed on multi-MW machines, but there has been no real study for small wind turbines. Small wind is rapidly growing market, and an increase in turbine reliability will improve availability and O&M strategies resulting in a reduction in the cost of energy. The techniques of data analysis and management developed in this project will also be applicable to large wind, and other renewable systems such as tidal and wave.