Cubico Sustainable Investments, a leading renewable energy provider with a global portfolio of 5 GW, used i4SEE TECH GmbH, a wind analytics and predictive maintenance specialist, to develop a new operational strategy for its Brazilian portfolio.
Over a five-year period, this is expected to provide a financial gain of 1.2 million Euros to Cubico. Brazil has the largest concentration of wind farms in Latin America with excellent wind resources. Due to harsh site conditions and premature wear of critical components, a persistently high number of wind turbines were curtailed or stopped until maintenance could be performed. These curtailed turbines experienced sustained reductions in power output, often by as much as 50%.
Using its depth of industry and engineering experience, i4SEE collected operational data from sites, reviewed maintenance records, developed an early warning indicator, and crafted a new operational strategy to benefit Cubico. This new strategy includes a reduction in the curtailment scheme, allowing the turbines to run at a higher power output while simultaneously reducing stress on the turbines and allowing the maintenance teams breathing room to carry out corrective actions.
i4SEE is carrying out further investigation on the development of dynamic curtailment levels depending on likely time to repair and current state of the pitch system.
“Providing an environment for the development of critical thinking is one of Cubico’s strategies and has shown positive results. The Brazilian team (Engineering and Performance) began to face the never-ending challenge of achieving highly efficient O&M, including efforts to deeply understand wind turbine control strategy. This allowed rich discussions within Cubico, culminating in the partnership with i4SEE’s world-class data experts, and increased AEP through an optimized curtailment strategy.”
Robson Liger, WTG Maintenance Manager, Cubico Sustainable Investments.
“A significant business case has been demonstrated for reducing the extent of curtailment applied to turbines with pitch issues, whilst simultaneously reducing loads. i4SEE has provided valuable advice to the Cubico teams in Brazil and London in understanding and refining operational strategies and increasing turbine reliability. This is precisely what we seek as a long-term owner of a global portfolio of assets. We will be tracking these gains going forward and working with i4SEE to identify and implement further opportunities for optimisation.”
Charlie Plumley, Performance Manager, Cubico Sustainable Investments.
“We are extremely pleased with the positive outcome of this project and the significant financial gains that we project. In an environment where O&M teams are faced with daily pressures, keeping a focus on strategical optimisation becomes ever more important. Through our close cooperation with the team at Cubico we were able to understand and solve a complex engineering challenge, and together we have achieved a great outcome”
Christopher Gray, CEO, i4SEE.
