Smart data increases the efficiency of wind farms
Siemens monitors thousands of wind power plants around the world to operate them as efficiently as possible. The company recently opened a remote diagnostics center in Brande, Denmark, where sensor data from all the plants is watched and analyzed day and night. At the end of October, a total of 7,800 onshore and offshore wind turbines were connected to the center, and they were transmitting approximately 200 gigabytes of data per day. Special analytical models compare that data with the contents of a database that holds over 15 years' worth of recent data from wind power plants. These comparisons help to quickly narrow down, identify, and eliminate the causes of anomalous turbine behavior. The center can predict the failure of parts well in advance and thus prevent unexpected downtime. In addition, these large quantities of data are analyzed with the specific purpose of developing optimizations for the plants.Siemens began monitoring...