China’s Wind Power Not So "Smart"

When the wind moves the wind turbine， what comes out is not only the electric power， but also the large quantity of data.

In Europe， the wind turbine manufacturers collect the data to improve the investors return on asset and provide references for the improvement and update of the next generation of products in the R&D， operation and maintenance.

The data covers the electricity generation index of wind turbines， the real- time operating parameters of key components， the climatic conditions in the past ten years and so on. It also covers the judgment and forecast based on the integration of these data.

Every wind turbine the manufacturers have set up is a small data center. In an office in the building by the Eastern Third Ring of Beijing， the technicians of Vestas China are receiving the operating parameters of the wind turbines with the total installed capacity of 45 million kilowatt， as well as the data from 6000 meteorological stations. The data could be turned into visualized charts after being selected， integrated and processed by large computers for guiding the operation and maintenance teams.

However， the hi-tech products and services do not go well in the promotion in China. Up to the autumn of 2014， most of Vestas Chinese clients did not renew the contract after the expiration of guarantee period for the wind turbines. This means that they have given up Vestas smart platform-based operation and maintenance services and turned to the smaller operation and maintenance teams with advantages in the price.

In China， Xinjiang Goldwind Sci& Tech Co.， Ltd （Goldwind）， Jiangyin Envision Energy Technology Co.， Ltd（Envision Energy） and other far-sighted Chinese wind turbine manufacturers are also making experiments in this field， but their new business did not go as well as expected， because their clients are still watching for the development of situation.

“Big Data” of Wind Power

The smart wind turbine is a rather new word in China. The wind turbine manufacturers can offer a set of systematic management solutions covering the initial site selection and maintenance in the later period through collecting the data of wind turbines and meteorology to help their clients improve the yield in the investment stage as much as possible. Nowadays， a certain number of wind turbines will have the sensors installed to their blades， gear boxes and other key parts， which can judge the operating conditions of wind turbines through colleting the important data about temperature， vibration， etc. In addition， the radars installed to the exterior parts of wind turbines can monitor the meteorological conditions of the places where wind turbines are located.

The data collected by sensors and radars will be temporarily stored in the data acquisition units of the wind farms， and then is to be assembled in the backstage servers via the Internet before being sent to super computers for processing.

Canada-based Gastops， which used to examine the bearings of engines of F22， Typhoon and other military aircrafts， have transplanted their technolo- gies to the wind power industry.

Like the engines for aircrafts， the gear box can be called the heart of the wind turbine. Most of the wind turbine manufacturers will install the sensors for gear boxes before selling their wind turbines. However， unlike most of the products in the market， Gastops online Metal Scan detects the number of metal particles instead of the vibration.

Li Mingdong， director of Gastopsbusiness in China， says that detecting the particles could find the problems earlier than detecting the vibration and send the forewarning signal in time.“Abrasion is inevitable during the functioning of the gear box， which will immediately lead to metal particles， but the vibration only appears when the abrasion reaches a certain level.”

Through data collection and examination， the maintenance and operation teams are handling more than the malfunctions after their arising. They also predict the problems before they come out. “We can eliminate the problems when they just come out and choose the proper time to get rid of them，” says Zeng Simeng， service director of Vestas China.

Nevertheless， the smart wind power projects are caring more than the collection of data from devices. It is of little significance to gather and analyze the wind turbines without touching the natural environment they are operating. The natural environment can generate a bigger data pool， including the data about the wind and landforms. Manufacturers with certain strength will build meteorological stations globally apart from collecting data through wind turbines.

Compared with the data about the operation of wind turbines， the data about the natural conditions is much larger in the quantity. Li Heng， director of solutions and software management at Envision Energy， believes that any enterprise that wants to do well in the management of wind power assets must collect and process the data about facility functioning and natural environment to build the numerical models of wind farms for the high-precision evaluation of assets operation level.

By combining the data about wind resources with the one about the operation of wind turbines， the manufacturers can draw up a map of wind resource distribution， which includes the availability of wind power， terrains， landforms， land cover， traffic conditions， soil property and conditions of power grid. The project investors can make a reasonable choice for the best investment site on the map.

Li Heng says： “The hardest part in this is the distribution of wind resources. In order to figure out the distribution， you need to make a meteorological model-based inversion of the historical data about wind resources and build a data pool like the tap water. The workload is very huge.”

Leaders in Smart Wind Power

The smart management platform of Vestas is functional throughout the life cycle of wind turbines. This company worked with IBM to develop the Firestorm super computer for the computing and analysis of wind power data. The technicians have developed dozens of tools in its smart management platform to monitor the Vestas wind turbines and meteorological stations around the globe. The data eventually point to the key operating index– Lost Production Factor， or LPF. The lower the number is， the better the unit is functioning. This could directly reflect clients loss of power generation due to malfunctions and could make a more accurate revelation of the operating conditions of wind turbines than the availability of wind turbines.

Under certain extreme conditions， the wind turbine availability is very high， but the power generation is quite low. For example， when the wind turbine is under repair in spite of the windy days， the LPF is very high at that moment.

In order to keep the LPF at bay， it is necessary for the wind turbine manufacturers to have a precise prediction and analysis of the power generation， management and plan the service orders collectively， lower the frequency of wind turbine malfunctions beyond plans， do a good job in the preventive maintenance and formulate a more reasonable maintenance plan. All these need the instructions of the smart management platform.

Macroscopically， Vestas smart management platform can tell clients how to find the best site for wind farms in a large area. Microscopically， the smart management platform can tell investors the precise way of designing the wind farm and the wind turbine that fits a certain place best.

In addition， this platform can tell the best heights of each wind turbine， the best way of setting up wind turbines in the farm and the safest way to claim back the investment. “The prediction based on the big data is very important，” says Sun Li， General Manager of Vestas Chinas Technological Department. “The prediction can help the operation and maintenance teams to judge the trend of wind turbines function changes ahead of time， realizing the shift the shift from simply and mechanically dealing with malfunction to foreseeing malfunctions and fixing the most reasonable solutions.”

The smart wind power technologies were just started in China. The main advocator of this concept in China is Envision Energy， which is a rising wind turbine manufacturer and earns the title as the “new noble” in Chinas wind power industry.

In 2012， Envision Energy newly installed wind power generators with the total capacity of 540 thousand kilowatt， ranking No. 7 in the industry. In 2014， the figure is expected to surpass 2 million kilowatt， jumping to the third place in the industry.

In October， Envision Energy made its debut in the International Wind Power Conference in Beijing and immediately became the spotlight. In the show， Envision Energy released its smart wind power management platform dubbed“Greenwich”.

In recent years， the wind power industry is developing vigorously in China. In some experts opinions， the emerging smart wind turbines are a golden mine buried deeply underground waiting for being exploited.

According to Li Heng， when Envision Energy initially got into the wind power industry， it worked with a mainstream property owner in China to develop a low-wind-speed project. After the completion they made an evaluation of the project and spent one week analyzing the 5Gb computer data on the spot. It was not until then did they real- ize the importance of fast and effective data analysis.

“After the evaluation， we found out that the manual work is not enough to meet the requirements of scientific decision-making，” Li Heng recalls. “We had to use our best men and work extremely hard in the construction. We never expected that such a regular analysis could take some much manpower and time.”

Li Heng also says that China sees hundreds of newly built wind power projects and there are thousands of already built projects in this country. It is impossible to analyze every project manually. “The entire industry is in the state of confusion and has no technological and information conditions for the in-depth analysis of projects.”

Zhang Lei， founder and CEO of Envision Energy， says that installing sensors to wind turbines and deploying the smart control algorithm is the first stage of smart energy. Simply put， this is only a “standalone version”， but it indeed marks the initiation of energy network.

After seven years development， Envision Energy announced in late November that the “Greenwich Platform”allows the use of cloud computing analysis， smart control technologies， data analysis expert system， active performance control and reliability-based decision-making algorithm， which improves the efficiency of power generation to be 20% more than similar products.

Apart from Envision Energy， Goldwind， which is the No. 1 wind power enterprise in China， is actively throwing itself into the smart technologies as well. They pay close attention to the precise control of the core data.

Through the analysis of the unit operation， Goldwind extracts the Eigen value for the abnormalities of power generators， turns the process of data analysis into a model， embeds it into the software platform of global monitor center in the form of “principles” and conduct the automatic forewarning in a large scale. When finding the aberrant conditions of the facilities， the operation and maintenance team of Goldwind will invite the experts for intervention and analysis， inform the spare parts depot to be ready for the supply and make reasonable arrangement ahead of the schedule.

Technicians of Goldwind say that the application of smart technologies avoids the occurrence of disastrous quality incidents. The accuracy of applied data analysis forewarning is more than 90%.

Senior executives of Goldwind says that the core of big data is actually the“small group of data” – how to dig out the most important core data from the seas of data in the process of turning complexity into simplicity.

Hi-tech Wind Power Unaccustomed to China

Theoretically， a wind power project depends on the high-performance computing based on the huge quantity of data from the site selection to the operation and maintenance， and then a fluid model is built to make scientific decision for the site. However， in Chinas wind power industry which is growing disorderly， such a method is not fully used.

The smart wind power technologies which have found its place in Europe are rarely inquired in China. Sun Li from Vestas China says that clients in Europe are always willing to renew the contract of service when the quality guarantee of wind turbines expires and they usually sign a ten-year contract. However， in China， Vestas never met the same things.

Thats because the wind turbine users need to pay extra fees for the continuation of the service when the quality guarantee period is over. Most of the wind turbine users in China think the cost of renewing the service is too high and usually turn to smaller operation and maintenance teams which ask for less.

Zeng Simeng with Vestas once says that foreign investors， after making careful calculations， find that renewing Vestas services means the adoption of a complete set of smart operation and maintenance system of Vestas， which could bring about an apparent increase in the power generation， higher than their cost.

But this logic found no place in China. Maybe thats because the smart wind power is still a new concept in this country and most investors have no indepth understanding of this. A director from one of the five major state-owned wind power enterprises in China says that he once saw the wind resource distribution map from Spanish wind power giant Gamesa. “It is really awesome， but we do not need that.”

In China， the investors pay closer attention to whether they can successfully sign the agreement with local authorities on the development of wind farms. This seems to be more important than the precise site selection. As for the site selection， the intuition of investors is usually the most common resort.

Generally speaking， “we hear locals say the area around that hill is quite windy. Then we go to talk with local authorities for negotiations.” If the negotiation is done， investors will find the electric power design institutions to install anemometer tower in proper places to test the wind speed. After one years data collection， they will make the decision of investment or not. Then they will start the bidding of wind turbines. In this process， the wonderful site selection system in the smart management platform has no use at all.

In the operation and maintenance of wind turbines， the forewarning function of smart management platform is not fully exerted either. The wind turbines with sensors and backstage management platforms usually have higher sales prices. Many Chinese investors give up this feat after weighing. The aforementioned SOEs director says that the smart management platform could monitor the wind turbines and predict malfunctions for the earlier intervention. “But we usually stop the machine for reparation and maintenance in summer， because it is less windy in that season.”

For this， Zeng Simeng says that the wind changes seasonally. In some areas， there are affluent wind resources in winter and in summer the wind weakens.“But even in summer， the wind speed has great changes in one week or even one day. The big data-based analysis and reparation plan could therefore generate excessive value.” Zeng also stress that the smart management platform could not do this alone as it needs to be fully integrated with devices， supply chains and personnel.

The smart wind power technologies are widely used in Europe thanks to dozens of years development of wind power industry there. In China， the wind power just went through ten yearsdevelopment. Five years ago， there were 80 wind turbine manufacturers in China which offer products varying greatly in quality. After 2012， the wind power industry went low and an industrial reshuffling emerged. However， the ideologies of Chinas wind power investors have not reached the level of their foreign peers. They still prefer the ex- tensive method and are more dependent on feeling rather than data.

Nowadays， the operation and maintenance have become the new spotlights of Chinas wind power industry. Many small-sized enterprises swarmed into this sector， just like what happened to wind turbine manufacturers five years ago. The popularization of smart wind power technologies needs more time.

Envision Energy and Goldwinds deployment in this field could be considered investment into the future. In consideration of the size and development pace of Chinas wind power industry， the smart wind power is not a dream at the other end of the world. An increasing number of investors have realized the importance of this field.“From the wind turbine to operation and maintenance and then to smart control and management， this is a discipline that represents the ever increasing cognitive level of the industry，” says Sun Wenxuan with Denmark-based Make Consulting.