Onyx InSight to retrofit turbines
07/10/2020
Onyx InSight, a provider of predictive maintenance solutions to the wind industry, has teamed up with European renewable power producer Ventient Energy to optimise output and extend the life of a large fleet of the UK’s onshore turbines with new technology.Ventient is acquiring onshore wind assets to achieve sustainable portfolio growth and deliver greater rewards for investors. As part of a strategy to improve the reliability of its fleet, over 300 turbines across 17 wind farms will be retrofitted with Onyx InSight’s condition monitoring system (ecoCMS) advanced sensing technology and cloud-based predictive analytics, fleetMONITOR. This will enable a transition to proactive maintenance, aiming to reduce downtime and major component refurbishment costs.
With the retrofit, the turbines will be ‘data rich’, enabling predictive analytics and optimised repair planning. Dr Evgenia Golysheva, Onyx InSight’s Head of Engineering, said: “Once we get the equipment installed, we can identify bearing failures routinely six to 24 months in advance of repair. To ensure efficient installation, we have streamlined the process and have a strong quality assurance and control process. We have piloted on several sites already to iron out any potential technical challenges and make the scale-up easy.”
Where operators implement this Industry 4.0 solution, it yields better data that helps diagnose issues early and allows them to solve real-world problems, from a cost reduction and power production point of view.
Onyx InSight’s advanced sensing solution has transformed the market through its use of affordable and effective microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensors and analytics have demonstrated that predictive maintenance is invaluable for the wind energy industry.
