The importance of investigating tower oscillation issues

Turbine tower oscillation can be a major cause of prolonged asset downtime and production loss.

The use of wind power has significantly increased over the last years. Maintaining the health of wind assets is essential in order to enable optimal wind energy production.

Wind assets can become fatigued while operating in different environments and a wind range of wind speeds. Tower oscillations can cause vibrations that lead to loads fatigue and and aerodynamic asymmetry. Turbine tower oscillation faults can often be overlooked as they can stop your wind asset for such a short period of time, asset owners do not believe that they are worth investigating.

Excessive tower oscillations can be dangerous for a number of reasons:

• increase of tower fatigue
• is a sign of potential failures
• can affect other turbine components

A tower oscillation fault can be a sign of a much larger problem that can cause major downtime for an asset owner and lost revenue. These problems can include minor disruptions in the magnetic field of a turbine generator, ground subsidence and incorrect Anemometer alignment.

Although tower oscillation faults often start out minor, where the wind asset usually restarts itself or can be reset remotely, they usually grow to a point where the wind asset cannot be reset and major downtime occurs.

At Greensolver, we highlight any tower oscillation faults that occur on the wind assets we manage, and we ensure that they are correctly investigated to prevent future downtime and lost revenue. We also carry out detailed turbine inspections where these issues can be easily identified and promptly rectified. This hands-on approach ensures that we can eliminate down time due to tower oscillation issues, in effect, increasing the asset revenue for our clients. Do not hesitate to contact us if you want to find out more!

By Jake Mason– Windfarm and Turbine Inspection Manager