In the wind sector, getting all the information about the location, the machines, the wind and the operation is a marathon
No, more information is not always better, especially if you don’t know what to do with it. We have the sensation of counting, more and more, with a large amount of information but: What to do with it? How to choose the most relevant? How to be sure of its reliability? And, perhaps one of the most important aspects, how to make decisions based on it?
In the business world, the power of data is taking on a relevance never seen before. Organizations are increasingly aware of the need not only to save, but also to manage the large amount of data they use every day. Now the question is not how to store the information, but to know how to give it value.
In the wind energy sector, having information is an endemic difficulty, getting all the data from the site, the machines, the wind and the operation is marathon, also to give “power to the data” is vital to know how to work and interpret them correctly.
The power of data becomes especially relevant when it comes to repowering the wind farms, since it is essential to know all the resource data and how the machines behave on site to do it correctly. But not only that. These data must be combined appropriately in order to anticipate the performance that the changes will generate, reduce the uncertainty of the investment as much as possible and, ultimately, make the best possible decisions.
Which will be the impact on the entire wind farm if I decide to change a machine? What if a new technology is added? Which would be the electrical power available in the network at different wind speeds throughout the day? What if storage is included? These are questions that we can solve from CIRCE, at a particularly critical moment, when around 10,000 MW of wind farms already have more than 20 years of life.
What is repowering?
The repowering of a wind farm consists of replacing old machines with less power and efficiency by new equipment with greater capacity and performance, allowing to increase the use of the wind resource. In this way, repowering stands as a strategy to give a second life to the resource with less environmental impact, maintenance cost and higher income.
How can I anticipate the needs of my wind farm?
A large amount of data to make a global energy evaluation study may not be the best solution, if these are influenced by the existing machines or the measurement conditions have changed over time. A tighter period may be valid if the evaluation is enriched by including all the knowledge acquired during the operation of the existing wind farm, which would make it possible to estimate the production of the new project with greater precision, minimizing uncertainties and providing investors and developers with reliable data to be able to develop your projects with the best guarantees.
If you want to know how to add value to the amount of data you obtain from your wind farm, click here to contact us.
