Maximising Wind Energy Generation with Expanso Bacalhau
(4 min)
As the world strives for sustainable energy solutions, wind energy has gained significant traction in recent years. With its capacity to significantly reduce carbon emissions and contribute to global climate goals, wind energy has rapidly become one of the most significant sources of renewable energy globally, with a 50% increase in installations from 2022 - 2023.
Generating energy from wind might seem magical, but key technical challenges still prevent wind power from reaching its full potential. One of the biggest obstacles is the remote locations of wind farms, often far from modern infrastructure and communication systems. This isolation makes it difficult for developers to monitor the condition of their installations in real-time and respond quickly to changing situations, like weather shifts or equipment failures. Without timely responses, turbines may need to be shut down for repairs, drastically impacting the bottom line.
Fortunately, this is the perfect environment for Bacalhau to thrive in. Built from the ground up to provide reliability in intermittent networks and deployable on almost any computing system, Bacalhau is the perfect tool for enhancing the observability and maintainability of your wind farm systems, both the individual turbine and farm-level scale.
Wind energy has its challenges
Figure 1: Wind Farm on a Cloudy day by Jean-Lui Piston on Unsplash
A wind turbine consists of a myriad of components that must work together flawlessly to harness wind energy and convert it into electricity effectively and efficiently. These components have to endure varying temperatures, humidity levels, and weather conditions at all times of the year, in a vast array of environments. Due to the complexity of these systems, and the length of time that they must remain operational, a single fault in any individual part can result in significant downtime for the entire turbine.
Equipment failures, such as bearing malfunctions or gearbox issues, result in costly, unscheduled repairs and replacements where it may be difficult to both source and deliver parts. Additionally, the intermittent nature of wind, coupled with grid fluctuations and extreme weather events, can further compound operational challenges. The financial consequences of downtime are considerable, as lost energy generation directly translates to reduced revenue.
Even a small amount of downtime can significantly decrease annual energy output, leading to substantial financial impact - up to $2,000 per day, per turbine or $720,000 per day, per wind farm. Prolonged downtime can also undermine the reliability of wind energy as a consistent power source, complicating its integration into the wider energy grid.
Currently, wind farm operators rely on a combination of remote monitoring and periodic on-site inspections to manage their turbines. While these methods offer some level of insight, they rarely offer real-time data, which can enable predictive maintenance functions allowing operators to make cheaper, scheduled, preemptive repairs.
How can Expanso help?
Expanso’s Bacalhau can revolutionize wind energy operations by significantly enhancing efficiency, turbine performance and reducing downtime. Through integrating Bacalhau at the edge, remote management becomes far more effective. This means you can easily add low-cost IoT sensors and upgrade your existing turbines for advanced real-time monitoring. Unlike traditional methods that rely on delayed, batched data processing, Bacalhau delivers near-instant insights into turbine health, helping you catch and fix issues before they become costly problems. While it doesn’t boost your network’s connectivity, it makes the most of whatever connection you have, ensuring you can respond quickly to any surprises.
With Bacalhau running directly on turbines, you can sidestep the usual issues of weak signals and delays that come with traditional systems. By processing data in real-time right at the edge, Bacalhau not only helps prevent downtime but also allows your systems to automatically correct faulty sensor readings. Furthermore, the data generated can be shared across multiple turbines and wind farms, maximizing efficiency, observability and enhancing the overall reliability of your wind power operations..
By tracking energy usage in real-time and visualizing it through dashboards, wind farm operators can fine-tune how they distribute and use power. This is especially valuable for local power setups where wind is the main or only energy source.
Where has distributed computing been implemented already?
We’re not the first to suggest that distributed computing systems can materialistically benefit wind farm installations, and to that end, we’ve put together a list of case studies that we think you’ll find interesting.
Data Analysis and Predictive Maintenance: This study shows how edge computing allows real-time analysis of sensor data from wind turbines, predicting failures and scheduling maintenance before problems arise. Traditional methods often struggle with limited computing power, high energy use, and delays, all of which hurt efficiency. With edge computing, you can cut down on downtime and reduce costs.
Remote Monitoring and Control: TTTech Industrial compilation showcasing the use of edge computing for remote monitoring, control and automation of wind farms. This allows for faster response times to issues and improved operational efficiency, especially in remote locations.
Grid Optimization: Research shows that edge computing can optimize offshore wind farms by using software-defined networks to deliver real-time data on wind energy production and grid conditions. This improves forecasting, fault detection, recovery, and helps balance the load of your renewable energy sources.
Bucknell University Edge Wind Turbine Demo: In this case study, Bucknell University students, in collaboration with VMWare, demonstrate how wind turbine models can be enhanced with edge computing. This integration enables real-time data analysis, optimization, and the efficient use of complex algorithms and AI directly at the edge.
These examples are just the beginning. The potential for edge computing in wind energy is huge, and as the technology advances, we’ll see even more innovative ways to boost efficiency, reliability, and cost-effectiveness in the industry.
Conclusion
The wind power revolution is still in its early days, with each year unveiling exciting new advancements. Whether you’re running a wind farm or managing energy grids, Bacalhau is ready to provide seamless integration, real-time computing, and scalable solutions designed to meet the specific challenges of the wind energy industry. Our tools enable developers to ensure the longevity, efficiency, and reliability of systems long after they’ve been constructed.
How to Get Involved
We welcome your involvement in Bacalhau. There are many ways to contribute, and we’d love to hear from you. Please reach out to us at any of the following locations.
Commercial Support
While Bacalhau is open-source software, the Bacalhau binaries go through the security, verification, and signing build process lovingly crafted by Expanso. You can read more about the difference between open-source Bacalhau and commercially supported Bacalhau in our FAQ. If you would like to use our pre-built binaries and receive commercial support, please contact us!
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