This chapter has demonstrated how WT reliability data can be used to benchmark WT performance for organising and planning future operations and maintenance, particularly offshore. Data need to be collected carefully and the taxonomy of WTs and wind farms must be defined in a common way, for which standards exist in other industries and are being prepared for the wind industry. It is also clear that the definition of failures, or indeed stoppages, need to be standardised to ensure that data can be compared in a useful engineering and management way.

Chapter Contents:

• 3.1 Introduction
• 3.2 Typical wind turbine structure showing main assemblies
• 3.3 Reliability data collection
• 3.4 Wind turbine taxonomies
• 3.5 Failure location, failure mode, root cause and failure mechanism
• 3.6 Reliability field data
• 3.7 Comparative analysis of that data
• 3.8 Current reliability knowledge
• 3.9 Current failure mode knowledge
• 3.10 Linkage between failure mode and root cause
• 3.11 Summary
• 3.12 References

Inspec keywords: wind turbines; maintenance engineering; power generation planning; power generation reliability

Other keywords: wind industry; WT reliability data; wind turbine reliability; wind farms; offshore; maintenance; operation planning; WT taxonomy

Subjects: Plant engineering, maintenance and safety; Wind power plants; Power system planning and layout; Reliability