In the early years of wind energy, the industry faced numerous challenges, with issues related to gearboxes and the mechanical drivetrain leading to significant losses in revenue and high operation and maintenance (O&M) costs. To address these concerns, condition monitoring systems (CMS) emerged as a ‘standard’ component of predictive and preventative maintenance strategies, vastly increasing turbine reliability. As the wind industry continues to evolve, the focus for improving reliability has now shifted towards wind turbine blades.
With the growing recognition of the risks and costs associated with turbine blades, the question arises: will blade CMS also become standard? With blades getting ever longer, new materials, new manufacturing methods, and ambitiously short design-to-serial production cycles, plus the pressure from developers and owners for ever longer turbine life-spans, Eleven-I, a 2019 founded startup operating out of the north west of England, believes so, as CEO Bill Slatter explains in this article.
