WIND TURBINE MAINTENANCE. A REVIEW

Abstract

Climatic change has taxed humanity in terms of the use of renewable energy in most countries around the world. In this context, installed wind power has recently increased at an almost exponential rate. Although there is still a large potential market that could be covered, minimizing costs has become a critical factor for a wind project to be financially justified and competitive. The present work is a bibliographical review of the primary strategies and methodologies used to reduce the cost of these activities while producing the maximum electricity from wind turbines. This review includes tabulated information on the types of faults, occurrence statistics, and associated costs and equipment suppliers for monitoring, detection, diagnosis and fault prediction and although most of it refers to onshore wind turbines, offshore wind turbines are also included in several parts. Research shows that in order to guarantee the reliability and economic feasibility of wind farms, the most used methodologies is CMS, which include vibration analysis, acoustic emission, ultrasonic testing techniques, thermography, oil analysis, structural health monitoring, optical fiber monitoring, strain measurement, radiographic inspection, power signal analysis. Currently, in addition to technical personnel, turbine operation and maintenance include, sensors, software, trucks, cranes, boats, helicopters, drones and smartphone applications. Keywords: wind turbines, maintenance strategies, cost, types of faults, condition monitoring system