WIND ENERGY
Improving Operational Excellence in Wind Farms The global renewable energy industry has seen unprecedented growth over the last several years. According to the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), the cumulative installed capacity of wind power projects has increased from 24 GW in 2001 to 432 GW in 2015 and is expected to grow to 703 GW by 2020 (Global Data).
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uch of this growth has resulted from great state and national level policies, tax incentives and high electricity prices. However, many of these incentives have since been reduced and now wind power companies face pressure to improve profitability, while scaling operational excellence. Mechanical engineering and physics based improvements have long been used to increase plant operations. However, these improvements plateau after a period of time thus providing diminishing returns. In the increasingly connected world of today, sensors are ushering in a new era of operation excellence based on real time, plant specific data. Companies now recognize that using data to improve operations can bring returns far greater than any physic improvements made to the components.
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AUTHORS-
R Vijay Domain Expert Wind MachinePulse
Sahiba Chopra Data scientist MachinePulse
We are in the age of the Internet of Things where sensors are recording data from every modern device, and the renewable energy industry is not one to be left behind.
EQ
August 2016
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