Austria: GL Garrad Hassan Participates in EWEA 2013

GL Garrad Hassan is at the EWEA 2013 conference in Vienna this week, with experts giving presentations, chairing sessions, while also being on hand to meet attendees at their exhibition stands. The topics GL Garrad Hassan experts are presenting include forecasting, yaw control and condition monitoring.

GL Garrad Hassan Presentations at EWEA 2013:

“Use of Offsite Data to Improve Short Term Ramp Forecasting”
Jeremy Parkes, GL Garrad Hassan
Wednesday 6 February 2013
Session: 14:00 – 15:30 Advances & Challenges in Wind Power

As the penetration of wind energy continues to increase around the world, the impact of wind energy on the management of electrical grids is becoming increasingly evident. The challenge of integrating wind energy for the grid operator, or for the energy trader to maximise the market value of the energy, is toughest during periods of rapid change in wind farm production, or ramp events. This study aims to focus on methodologies for improving short term ramp forecasting by using offsite data effectively.

“Long-term Simulations for Optimising Yaw Control and Start-Stop Strategies”
Thibault Delouvrié, GL Garrad Hassan
Wednesday 6 February 2013
Session: 14:00 – 15:30 Control and Loads

Yaw control and high-wind start/stop control are two aspects of wind turbine control which have received relatively little attention. The control algorithms are usually very simple, and depend on parameters for which no formal optimisation methods exist. Often the parameter values are set using a combination of trial and error, intuition and previous field experience. Following turbine commissioning, they can be adjusted further if careful observations are made and analysed over an extended period of time. This paper presents a new method whereby these aspects of the controller can be tuned and evaluated in detail at the design stage.

“Rethinking Local Content Requirements”
Oscar Fitch-Roy, GL Garrad Hassan
Thursday 7 February 2013
Session: 09:00 – 10:30 Social Acceptance – Lessons in How to Achieve it

Local content requirements are often presented as a barrier to wind development. But is this necessarily the case? This paper challenges such assertions, demonstrating that local content provisions serve a vital role in securing the social acceptance of – and indeed the political buy-in for – wind energy.

“Opportunities Around The Corner: Assessing Market Development in the Mena Region”
David Williams, GL Garrad Hassan
Thursday 7 February 2013
Session: 11:00 – 12:30 Beyond Europe

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is embedded in the consciousness of many as the ultimate home of fossil-fuels. Yet even in this most resource-rich of regions, a collection of market drivers is propelling interest in renewables, leading to an increasing number of nascent wind developments. But what is the true potential for wind in MENA? What barriers to deployment might thwart its prospects? This paper seeks to answer these pressing questions, drawing on the common regional themes of greatest interest to potential investors, suppliers, developers and policymakers from Europe.

“Comparison of Methods for Wind Turbine Condition Monitoring with SCADA Data”
Michael Wilkinson, GL Garrad Hassan
Thursday 7 February 2013
Session: 11:00 – 12:30 Improved Operations & Maintenance

Wind turbine reliability remains an important focus for wind turbine owners, operators and manufacturers. The effect of low reliability on wind turbine and wind farm availability is particularly acute in the offshore environment, where a failure can lead to prolonged downtime. Reliability can be improved and downtime reduced through the use of condition monitoring. The use of SCADA data for condition monitoring has a number of advantages; in particular the data are already collected, requiring no additional hardware.

Different approaches are available to utilise SCADA data to predict the health of operational wind turbines. Generally, they can be grouped into three categories: Signal Trending, Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Physical Models. This paper describes the results of an investigation into these approaches: examples of their application to real data sets are given and the relative merits are compared. The results of a large validation study which tested the effectiveness of the techniques in detecting a range of different component failures on 472 wind farm years of SCADA data from multiple turbine manufacturers are also presented.

POSTER SESSIONS:
Tuesday, 5 February 2013, 15:30 – 19:00

Nacelle Based Lidar-System – Procedure for Validation by Comparison with Cup Anemometry – Valentin Müller, GL Garrad Hassan

GL GH Experts Session Chairs

Lars Landberg, GL GH Senior Vice President, is the track chair for the Resource Assessment sessions. This critical area has been a topic of interest since the very beginning of wind energy development and is still a very active field of investigation. During this year’s wind resource assessment track, participants will not only learn about the latest developments within the field, each session will not only address the current challenges and developments, but aims to make the presentations applicable to the wider wind resource community. Finally, the sessions will also try to answer the question: where do we go from here?

Dr Ervin Bossanyi, GL GH, will chair the Control and Loads session. This session focuses on aspects of wind turbine dynamic and operational control which have a direct impact on turbine loads, component cost, energy capture, and integration into the grid system.

This year marks the 20th birthday of Bladed, the industry standard integrated software package for the design and certification of onshore and offshore turbines. GL GH hosts a stand party at 17.30 on Tuesday 5th February on stand A-C60.

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Press release, February 5, 2013; Image: GL