Continuous formal analysis of the condition and performance of local wind energy projects is crucial to ensuring the optimisation of these assets, and can govern a project’s viability or insolvency, renewable energy industry veteran Bo Thisted has said.

“An effective operations and maintenance contract has a direct and significant impact on a renewable energy company’s revenue stream, as it enables the firm to identify structural issues before they are exacerbated and end up costing more money in the longer term,” he said at renewable energy engineering and construction firm Conco’s wind energy seminar on Friday.

Conco, a subsidiary of JSE-listed Consolidated Infrastructure Group, recently extended its business offering to include an operations and maintenance division, which would diagnose and perform corrective action on the faulty components of wind energy projects with a view to optimising power production.

Thisted asserted that the immediate detection and repair of faulty components could significantly reduce the overall operational costs of a project over its lifespan.

He said that the unscheduled maintenance costs of a wind farm with a 20-year lifespan comprised 70% of the project’s total operational costs, while 25% of costs were attributable to scheduled maintenance and 5% were incidentals.

As a result, securing an experienced and highly-skilled on-site technician to repair unscheduled faults immediately was crucial.

“Having a skilled on-site technician can literally make or break your project,” Thisted noted.

In addition, constant performance monitoring of wind energy projects could enable greater energy generation, while optimising the project’s return on investment.

“Such monitoring will allow you to find out if you could extract a little more juice,” he commented.

While acknowledging the additional expense of an on-site technician or maintenance contract, Thisted added that condition-based monitoring of a project would prevent potential energy losses associated with sub-optimal operation.

Condition-based monitoring included borescope inspections, oil analysis, thermographic imaging, blade inspections and vibration analysis.

“To repair a wind turbine blade costs between $10 000 and $20 000, but to replace one costs between $100 000 and $200 000. You can do the maths,” he said.

Thisted cautioned that, in negotiating an operations and management contract with a service provider for wind energy projects, the contract should clearly define the scope of work and the warranty period; state performance guarantee incentives; include a strong force majeure provision; define carve outs and exclusions; include a serial defect clause; allow data access; and outline the limits of liability.

“In my 30 years of being involved in the wind energy business, the projects that didn’t do well were the ones without this gatekeeper. Selecting a good guardian for your asset will become critical to you,” he said.

Thisted’s comments followed the release of the Department of Energy’s (DoE’s) first large-scale high-resolution wind resource map for the country on August 31– generated from the Wind Atlas project launched last year – for research, development and planning of wind farms.

The map aimed to improve the knowledge and quality of resource assessment methods and tools during the planning and development of wind farms and off-grid electrification, while enabling local institutions to undertake wind resource measurements.

The map would feed into the DoE’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme, which required independent power producers to comply with environmental, agricultural and social criteria.