Boston, MA USA, 9 November 2022 – WindESCo, the leading wind plant optimization company, recently worked alongside Greencoat Capital and its turbine OEM to further increase the output and profitability of its wind farm.
Greencoat Capital, an infrastructure fund manager, used WindESCo’s SaaS Find, Fix, Measure (FFM) to identify 2.2% in additional Annual Energy Production (AEP). Find, Fix, Measure’s patented algorithms detect issues through high speed SCADA, rather than the industry standard 10-minute SCADA. From this, issues are able to be monitored and detected remotely with more accuracy and less overhead. Through the analysis, an average of 3.8 issues anomalies affecting annual energy production (AEP) per turbine were identified.
The issues detected included yaw misalignment, as well as rated power anomalies and pitch optimization which were detected on every turbine analyzed by WindESCo. Once identified, WindESCo worked directly with Greencoat and the OEM, which holds the full service agreement, to implement parameter changes to fix issues on the turbines. WindESCo then performed ongoing audits to validate the OEM’s proposed solution which validated the effectiveness of the changes
“Managing a renewable portfolio of more than 1GW without the depth of staff of a utility means our time is precious,” said Ben Brooks, Portfolio Manager at Greencoat. “Working with WindESCo has allowed us to prioritize optimizations that make a real difference to our margins without taking focus away from other important parts of the business.”
Edward Wagner, WindESCo’s Chief Revenue Officer, stated, “Especially in the current market where margins are thin for operators and owners, a 2% increase is large enough to improve a farm’s P&L.” He continued, “By working with the OEM and Greencoat, we could find anomalies affecting AEP, substantiate those with the OEM, fix and then measure the AEP gains, everyone wins.”
“WindESCo provided the expertise, tools and support to gain insight from high frequency data and build a compelling case to allow our operator to work collaboratively with the OEM on a site under an LTSA.” Brooks concluded. “This provided us with a scalable and cost-effective solution to complement the performance analysis provided under contract by our operator and deliver against our fund performance improvement plan.”
WindESCo’s Find, Fix, Measure continuously checks over 60 issues for wind turbine optimization, and helps operators prioritize fixes based on the expected improvements in AEP and the efforts required to make the fix. Measurements are done using a DNV certified method. Customers are able to log into their portal to see real time calculations of AEP loss and issue detection at scale. New checks from Windesco are being added quarterly.
