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Analysis of wind turbine degradation via the nacelle transfer function

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Abstract

A new method of evaluating the degradation of wind turbine power performance was investigated on Jeju Island, South Korea in compliance with IEC international standards. Evaluating wind turbine degradation fairly within a year is difficult because wind speed varies annually. Thus, three wind turbines on the Hankyeong wind farm were tested to obtain the Nacelle power curves (NPCs) for a period of six years (from 2008 to 2013). The terrain of the wind farm was assessed; furthermore, an 80-m met mast was analyzed along with the nacelle wind speed within the measurement sector to determine the Nacelle transfer function (NTF). Six years of NPCs were determined with the NTFs. On the basis of these curves, each Capacity factor (CF) of the turbines was calculated by applying wind and electric power data derived from the SCADA system. These calculations were compared with the conventional normalized CF. The degradation of the normalized CF was approximately 0.26% per year on average based on the NPCs for the three wind turbines; this degradation was roughly 1.1% when the conventional approach was used.

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Correspondence to Kyungnam Ko.

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Recommended by Associate Editor Tong Seop Kim

Dongheon Shin is a Ph.D. candidate of the Multidisciplinary Graduate School Program for Wind Energy in Jeju University, Republic of Korea. He holds a bachelor’s degree (2012) in Earth and Marine Science and a master’s degree (2014) from the Faculty of Wind Energy Engineering, Graduate School, Jeju University. He has studied the power performance testing of wind turbines and wind farm design. In addition, he is interested in computational fluid dynamics.

Hyeonwu Kim is an administrative staff member of the Korean Register, Pusan, Republic of Korea. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Social and Geography Education (2011) and a master’s degree (2013) from the Multidisciplinary Graduate School Program for Wind Energy in Jeju University. He is interested in wind farm development, especially wind resource assessment and economic analysis.

Kyungnam Ko is an Assistant Professor of the Faculty of Wind Energy Engineering, Graduate School, Jeju University, Republic of Korea. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Marine Engineering in 1993 and a master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1995 at Jeju University. He then received his Ph.D. degree in Mechanical System Engineering in 2002 from Gunma University, Japan. He has been studying wind resource assessment, wind farm design, and economic feasibility analysis. Furthermore, his research interests include the analysis of the wake behind wind turbines and computational fluid dynamics.

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Shin, D., Kim, H. & Ko, K. Analysis of wind turbine degradation via the nacelle transfer function. J Mech Sci Technol 29, 4003–4010 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-015-0846-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-015-0846-y

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