Impact of wind turbine nominal power limitation over wind turbine blade remaining useful life and its economic consequences

Abstract

The present paper investigates the effects of wind turbine nominal power limitation on the remaining useful life of turbine blades. It also looks at the economic impact of this limitation. In this context, the paper provides wind turbine owners and operators with an overview of how to potentially extend the remaining useful life of wind turbine blades and lays out the economic benefits that can be achieved via the modulation of nominal power. In investigating wind turbine blade damage, prior studies focused mainly on predictive models based on the 10 minutes SCADA data wind speed history, without however, trying to protract the remaining useful life of the blades. Only a handful of papers have explored the possibility of increasing the remaining useful life by adjusting the start-up and shutdown procedures with poor results. It would appear that wind turbine blade fatigue damage mainly increases when the wind turbine is in a power production regime, and the mechanical stresses associated with this regime are a function of the nominal power of the wind turbine. The present work therefore investigates the impacts of nominal power changes on both the remaining useful life of wind turbine blades and the economic value of the wind turbine in a bid to identify an optimal control mode. The wind turbine blade damage evaluation is based on 10 minutes SCADA data and the FAST simulation tool with the ultimate goal of providing wind turbine operators with an easy application. The damage evaluation is then applied considering different nominal power levels for the same wind turbine model in order to see the resulting impact on the remaining useful life. This project therefore takes a pioneering approach by proposing a remaining useful life optimization tool to wind turbine operators, in effect, a decision-making tool regarding which exploitation strategy to adopt.