Investigating the wind parks location impact on the failure rate of contemporary wind turbines

Abstract

Wind energy is currently an established electricity production option worldwide, contributing to the reduction of environmental pollution and CO2 emissions. Actually, during the last twenty years a considerable installed wind power increase has been encountered, thus the up to date installed wind power approaches 550GWe. The situation in Greece is fairly well since the current wind power in operation is approximately 2700MWe. As it is well established, the reliability of the wind turbines influences both the energy production and the maintenance and operation cost of commercial wind parks. As a result, the operational period of the machine is reduced, while additional expenses are needed in order to face the downtime causes. In the present work operational data of an important number of wind parks located in Greece have been analyzed. Moreover, emphasis is given on the impact that the wind parks' location has on the failures of commercial wind turbines. For this purpose real world data concerning similar wind parks, based on the same type of wind turbines, located on the mainland, on the islands or near the sea have been collected and analyzed. According to the data gathered one may compare the different failure patterns of contemporary commercial wind turbines operating for up to ten years all around Greece.