INESC TEC starts project with company EDP Renováveis to detect failures in wind turbines

INESC TEC’s Centre for Industrial Engineering and Management (CEGI) is coordinating a project where the goal is to create tools to assess the performance of wind power turbines. The “Reliability Engineering for Wind Turbine Generators” is being developed for the electricity company EDP Renováveis and it involves other INESC TEC Units, more specifically the Centre for Power and Energy Systems (CPES) and the Centre for Enterprise Systems Engineering (CESE).

According to the manager of UGEI, Bernardo Almada Lobo, the goal with the project “is to develop a module capable of dynamically estimating the reliability of the different components of wind power turbines throughout their lifecycle, as well as predict the percentage of failures in the turbines”.

The underlying forecasting models will take into consideration the diversity of the technology and the geographical distribution of the wind parks, making it possible to create reliability curves for important parts of wind turbines, predict the failure rate and the questions related to the operation and maintenance of wind parks, namely the budgets associated with preventive and corrective actions made due to expected repairs and maintenance policies used.

The project started in February 2014, and in an initial phase, it will have a 12-week duration.