The stakes and opportunities in renewable energy have never been higher.
Renewables accounted for more than 20% of all electrical energy generation in 2021. And the International Energy Agency expected 30% of global electricity production to come from renewables by the end of last year.
And with worldwide investments in renewable energy and efficiency measures surpassing $400 billion last year, operators in wind, solar, hydro, and energy storage need to maximize their operations and get the best performance from their investments.
While working to meet those predictions and realize their maximum potential, operators face a mix of challenges, including developing predictive maintenance recommendations that maximize power output; optimizing logistics, improving planning, facilitating timely maintenance, preventing failures, and quickly identifying underperforming assets.
Traditional approaches to operations and maintenance have proven to be suboptimal and frequently result in unplanned downtime. Many attempts to improve productivity with manual methods have higher costs than they do benefits, and they leave valuable data underutilized.
SparkCognitionTM Renewable Suite offers a solution to these challenges, with AI-powered asset performance management that has the proven ability to increase annual energy production by up to 2%, decrease O&M costs by 10%, and improve operational efficiency.
Renewable Suite helps to:
- Reduce unexpected downtime
- Minimize operational costs
- Optimize asset performance
- Streamline decision making
- Address problems faster through scalable deployment
Let’s look at how we can make a big difference for your project.
Solutions for solar panel soiling
The productivity of solar panels can be reduced by 3-4% annually due to soiling problems caused by the accumulation of dust, pollen, bird droppings, and other debris over time. This impacts not just the production of the photovoltaic panels but can disrupt the flow of energy through the asset and create hot spots that damage components and decrease its productive life span.
Instead of relying on costly soiling stations to manage cleaning schedules, SparkCognition Renewable Suite helps solve the problem of soiling by analyzing SCADA data and contextualizing weather conditions to reliably forecast soiling patterns.
As a result, energy producers can take advantage of rainfall that will clean the panels and rely less on costly cleaning operations. When cleaning is needed, Renewable Suite determines the best times for scheduling cleaning sessions and optimizes the process to retain maximum profitability.
With a smarter cleaning process, plant operators can take the guesswork out of important but costly upkeep and reduce the impact of soiling on overall performance.
Better pitch bearing health status for wind turbines
The failure of a wind turbine pitch bearing results in costly lost production and an extensive and time-consuming process to replace. Previous methods to monitor and assess the integrity of the bearings were costly and required taking the turbine offline to pull grease samples from the bearing to analyze wear particles.
SparkCognition Renewable Suite eliminates the need for downtime caused by these maintenance checks by using data from sensors on the turbine to better assess pitch bearing health and predict failures months ahead of time.
This early detection can predict failures with more than 90% accuracy up to six months in advance, allowing project owners to have needed parts on hand and conduct needed replacements without multiple crane callouts.
With less downtime and the ability to batch replacements for maximum efficiency, project owners can save $150,000 or more each time multiple pitch bearings are replaced at the same time.
Identifying and correcting yaw misalignment cheaper and faster
Yaw misalignment is a persistent problem for wind turbine operators that reduces output due to incorrect orientation of the turbine. Misalignment also creates maintenance issues because of the increased loads created by wind that is not flowing perpendicularly into the turbine rotor.
Rather than rely on light detection and ranging measurements that are costly, SparkCognition Renewable Suite uses a physics-based method based on historical data. This methodology can detect a yaw misalignment of five degrees or more with 96% accuracy with only two months’ worth of data.
This training model can run continuously with no outside input or monitoring needed, with analysts notified of the nature of the misalignment so it can be quickly corrected.
Customers using Renewable Suite have reported a 2% improvement in annual energy production, leading to significant increases in revenue that would have been unavailable using traditional methods to address yaw misalignment.
SparkCognition understands the importance of renewable energy, and we want projects specializing in wind, solar, hydro, and energy storage—or in the fast-growing mix of assets—to make the most of their investments. We’ve made Renewable Suite into a powerful solution that takes advantage of vast amounts of data to help protect and unlock the full potential of every energy project.
We’re here to help you meet the future head-on. Contact us today.
