Hinesburg, VT, USA, April 13th 2016 – RNRG has announced today that the site-wide installation of its “TurbinePhD” condition monitoring systems has been completed at the 21 MW Grant County Wind Farm in Minnesota, USA.
Originally constructed in 2010 and owned by Aspenall Energies, the project is composed of ten 2.1MW Suzlon S88 wind turbines. Suzlon, who delivers the long term service agreement for operations and maintenance, has installed the CMS systems across the entire site and will perform the ensuing monitoring work.
TurbinePhD will enable Suzlon to execute elements of predictive maintenance at Grant County, to fix or replace components at the right time, thus avoiding down time due to unexpected major component failures. RNRG, who designs and manufactures TurbinePhD, will provide ongoing technical support to Suzlon and Aspenall.
John Ugland, RNRG Technical Account Manager, commented: “It’s a remote site, located at a two hour drive from the Suzlon service center, and depending on weather conditions, it can be completely inaccessible for major servicing. That’s why having TurbinePhD in place is so important. It will offer the means to deliver the proactive maintenance planning that is needed. We are thankful to Suzlon for the trust they placed in us with this first complete collaborative project, and we very much look forward to strengthening our long term relationship with them.”
The TurbinePhD installed at Grant County is an automated vibration-based solution designed to equip operators with a cost-effective and easy-to-use drivetrain condition monitoring system. It provides timely diagnosis of asset health, before secondary damage is caused, so that the corrective action required is less expensive than running the asset to failure.
What’s more, TurbinePhD’s powerful automated analysis classifies the health of all turbine drivetrain components, so users don’t have to be vibration experts to get actionable information. Improved alert management allows users to handle all alerts in one place and track who acknowledges and clears issues. The fleet view allows operators to assess the health of all wind farms at a glance, and graphical health alerts clearly highlight those that need attention. At the wind farm level, users can see which turbines have new alerts or view and download charts of the most critical faults on the farm.
Interestingly, the Grant County project’s wind resource was also originally measured using RNRG’s met masts and instrumentation. “This is a nice example of RNRG’s unique ability to support wind projects at all phases of development and operations”, concluded Ugland.
Learn more about RNRG’s cutting-edge CMS system at www.renewablenrgsystems.com/turbinephd.
About Renewable NRG Systems (RNRG)
Renewable NRG Systems (RNRG) measurement products and technical services are purpose-built for the global renewable energy industry. RNRG pioneered wind resource assessment more than 30 years ago, when the wind industry was just beginning. Today, the company serves multiple stages of wind and solar project development-from site assessment to commercial operation. You’ll find RNRG products in use by utilities, OEMs, developers, research institutes, and governments in more than 150 countries.
www.renewablenrgsystems.com
About Suzlon Group:
The Suzlon Group is one of the leading renewable energy solutions providers in the world with an international presence across 19 countries in Asia, Australia, Europe, Africa and North and South America. With over two decades of operational track record, the Group has a cumulative installation of approximately 15GW of wind energy capacity, a workforce of over 8,000, a low-cost manufacturing base and strong in-house R&D set-up in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and India. Approximately 9GW of the Group’s installation is in India, which makes up for ~37% of the country’s wind installations, making Suzlon the largest player in this sector. The company has recently forayed into the solar space. The Group, headquartered at Suzlon One Earth in Pune, India, is comprised of Suzlon Energy Limited and its subsidiaries. Suzlon corporate website: www.suzlon.com
About Aspenall Energies
Aspenall Energies, LLC, is a Puerto Rico based limited liability company founded in 2007 to build, own, and operate industrial and community scale renewable energy projects in Puerto Rico and the mainland United States. Aspenall is a pioneer of the wind energy industry in Puerto Rico, developing the first industrial scale wind power installation at Bacardí Corporation’s Cataño facility, and is an enthusiastic supporter of research in wind energy, having partnered with the University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez in the development of the island’s first wind energy laboratory. Aspenall supports community based wind energy, and, along with its farmer-partners, is proud to work with NRG Systems in the early deployment of Turbine PhD at its community based project at Grant County, Minnesota.
www.aspenall.com/
