What is a CMS? A CMS (or Condition Monitoring System) is a system modern wind turbines have to monitor the reliability (or condition) of certain major components. This system consists of multiple sensors (usually accelerometers) that, when placed on particular locations within the turbine drive train, can provide a very precise diagnosis of the health of certain subcomponents. These systems are designed to provide alarms as soon as they detect that one component is vibrating differently, which can be an …
A new day has arrived for the wind industry because we are releasing some of our secrets! The Yaw Misalignment Revolution White Paper studies this performance issue in detail to reveal the effects on turbine performance and lifetime. A sneak peak awaits: The yaw system is the mechanism all modern turbines have to handle direction changes on the wind. As winds are not constant by nature, wind turbines always need to face the wind to keep generating electricity. In order …
As wind turbines extract energy from the wind (in order to generate electricity), the wind flow behind the turbine is strongly perturbed, reducing the available energy on the wind. The wind speed decreases and the turbulence increases. Imagine how a water stream changes when we place an object floating on it? The same thing happens to the wind, even though in this case it’s a lot less visible. This change on the wind flow is what we called the wake …
ERG and Sereema have been successfully collaborating for 3 years now to improve performance on wind farms under Windfit monitoring. Here, we share one of the typical findings where the cause of the underperformance was linked by Windfit to a rotor aerodynamic imbalance. The system was then used to follow-up on the correction brought up by Vestas. On one of the turbines, the 3 blades were found to be misaligned from its 0° mark by up to 1°. Realignment had …
How to detect a rotor imbalance Why is rotor balance important? The rotor blades are one of the key components (if not the most important) of wind turbines to convert kinetic wind energy into electricity. The blades are highly loaded components, with most of these loads being transferred to the rest of the turbine components. These, however, can become excessive for the turbine if the rotor suffers from a poor balance quality. Additionally, an imbalanced rotor can reduce the power …
Wondering how Windfit can double up as a LIDAR? What's a yaw misalignment? When your turbine is not facing the wind appropriately, its yaw is misaligned, leading to loss in production and increased turbine loading. When the yaw is misaligned, the machine "thinks" it's facing the wind while in reality, the wind comes sideways. This gap is what explains the loss of production. In order to extract the maximum energy from the wind to produce the most of electricity possible, …