How vibration monitoring improves turbine uptime

摘要

The wind industry is booming. Recent estimates put its global capacity at over 340,000 wind turbines with a generation capacity of more than 430 GW, a figure that may quadruple by 2030. But it's also a highly demanding sector. While wind turbines perform under punishing conditions, operators are under pressure to run as efficiently as possible by raising output and controlling costs. One key to that goal will be preventing unscheduled downtime from component failures. Recent instances tell of wind turbines exploding from gear failures, typically from high winds. After operators pay the repair bills, they could be slapped with fines and demand for compensation.