Asset Management and Optimisation Services (AMOS) News

Ten Major Suppliers of Turbines, Components and Design Services Join to Study Reliability - 15th Mar 2008

Garrad Hassan (GH) and nine other industry and academic leaders have already been collaborating to put together a successful proposal for EU support for the new RELIAWIND project, with the aim of measuring and understanding historical reliability to create a new generation of more intelligent and reliable wind turbines expected to generate electricity more cheaply.

The aim of RELIAWIND is to monitor component reliability, to propose new designs which are more reliable[1] and cheaper to maintain and operate, thereby aiming to increase availability to 99%[2].

“The project RELIAWIND led by GAMESA has received full endorsement from the European Commission, with its 13.5 score in the first request for proposals related to Non Nuclear Energy. It is located in the exclusive group of most highly marked projects, rendering it eligible for funding of up to €5.2M for its development.”, said a spokesperson for Gamesa Eolica.

To achieve the project’s aims, ten major suppliers of products and services to the wind energy industry have joined forces. These include turbine and component manufacturers, wind farm owners and operators, consultants and research institutions. The research comprises three key phases.

1. The determination of a statistical basis for prioritising improvements in component reliability, repair and maintenance strategies.

2. The evaluation of all plausible design failures and their consequences using techniques such as FMEA and FTA.

3. The proposal of new, more robust designs and intelligent systems for monitoring component health and scheduling preventative maintenance. Garrad Hassan, will be coordinating the collection and interpretation of historical data as well as comparing and prioritising component design effort by using its 25 years’ knowledge of component failures, design load cases, control design and the development of international standards for the design, testing and operation of wind turbines.

“The project provides a fantastic opportunity to make a real and substantial step forward in the understanding of component and system reliability in the wind industry”, said Mark Spring, Garrad Hassan project engineer for RELIAWIND

The new technologies will be integrated in new generations of wind turbines, components and wind farms, aiming for compatibility between different manufacturers and clients to achieve maximum service guarantee.

[1] Reliability target: 20% increase of Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF) in offshore and 10% in onshore wind. Mean Time To Repair (MTTR) will drop 50% offshore and 20% onshore.
[2] Availability will improve from 85-90% to 97-98% offshore and from 97-98% to 98-99% onshore.

Garrad Hassan launches new Asset Management Group - 24th Oct 2007

This month Garrad Hassan (GH) launches their new international Asset Management and Optimisation Services group, AMOS.

GH has analysed the operational performance of about 20% of the world’s wind farms. That experience has led to the development of a range of tools that can identify problems and areas for performance improvement. This well established service has now become a new specific business area: the Asset Management and Optimisation Services group, AMOS.

AMOS meets increasing global demand to optimise wind farm performance and maximise value in operating assets. The group does this through detailed analysis of data from standard SCADA systems, and management of wind farm operation and maintenance activities. GH has used data from all the common SCADA systems for this purpose.

Andrew Garrad, CEO of Garrad Hassan Group comments on the launch of the new group “AMOS is the synthesis of a lot of what we do and have done for the last 25 years – our business is to understand wind energy data. There is enormous value in the operational data if you know where to look and GH does. AMOS will allow our clients to increase the income from their wind farms with little expense. It is exciting to see such immediate cash benefit from the application of some rigorous technical tools”

AMOS offers a monitoring service, which regularly assesses the performance of wind farms for availability, power curve, wind speeds and revenues against budgeted levels.

Guidance is offered to optimise and maintain performance levels of a wind farm to benefit the project owner and lender. Close interaction with the operator is a crucial part of running an efficient project and Garrad Hassan's extensive experience in this area is part and parcel of this service.

AMOS links a wealth of experience in operating wind farms throughout Garrad Hassan’s international offices. Particularly active in asset management outside the UK are GH’s operations in Germany, Spain, Italy and the US.

The AMOS team is headed by Keir Harman based in the UK. Keir has been working in the wind industry for over 10 years and has led this area of GH activity for the last five years. Find out more about our Asset Management and Optimisation Services group here.