Wednesday 25th October 2017

Wind Watch

Wind Watch is published every Monday and Friday.

In the meantime, have you checked out the latest posts on our blog? If not, you should!

This week Romax Technology, one of the sponsors of this year's Financing Wind conference, has shared insights into how data analytics can help project owners make wise decisions.

How can big data achieve dramatic cost reductions for wind farms?
By Romax Technology

In the last few years the wind sector has seen a dramatic decrease in worldwide strike prices. These reductions are a testament to the hard work and many innovative ideas implemented across all industry sectors, which enabled the rapid decrease in the levelized cost of energy of onshore and offshore wind farms.

The largest proportion of these anticipated decreases will be achieved through economies of scale, increased turbine sizes, efficiency savings in logistics and supply chains, reducing the cost of capital, and greater use of debt finance.

However, it is worth bearing in mind that the latest auction results – especially in EU offshore wind – are estimates, and the industry still needs to prove that it can sustainably generate at those prices and remain profitable.

The wider adoption of various sensors and significant developments in data processing capabilities mean that ‘big data’ has become a key topic at many wind conferences.

Ironically, traditional power plants have been using the same data sources (SCADA, vibration, maintenance, lubrication etc.) for many years without resorting to digital clones. Drawing from our experience, working with a number of operators across the world, we find the challenge is not in big data, but in making...