Renewable energy software company Clir Renewables has formed a partnership agreement with renewable energy generator Lake Turkana Wind Power (LTWP).

The partnership will result in Clir enhancing LTWP’s wind farm performance tracking and support its Kenya-based team in realising potential opportunities for enhancement.

LTWP’s flagship 310 MW wind farm, which is currently operational, is located in a region with consistently strong, unidirectional winds.

Going forward, LTWP has turned its focus on ensuring that the wind farm is able to take full advantage of this resource, and, ultimately deliver consistent, high yield returns for its investors.

Through the partnership, Clir will analyse data from each of Lake Turkana’s 365 turbines in the context of available resource, geospatial features and nearby turbines. Through its machine learning-driven analysis, Clir will be able to see through the “noise” of resource fluctuation and identify any instances of underperformance and the causes thereof.

Through this process, Clir will be able to provide LTWP with the insights necessary to increase yearly energy production, monitor asset health and manage technical financial risk. 

Clir’s team will further use this analysis to compare individual asset performance at the project, portfolio and industry levels, with insights shared with all project stakeholders through Clir’s reporting function.

Clir Europe director David O’Hare says Lake Turkana is a particularly unique project. “It’s the first of this scale in Africa and has been developed to take advantage of some of the best conditions for consistent energy production.”

He adds that, having worked across a number of large-scale, unique projects around the world, Clir is keen to leverage its wide-ranging experience to assess Lake Turkana’s current performance and potential gains.

LTWP chief technical officer Wellington Otieno says that, with Clir, the LTWP team of local technicians will be supported with the most up-to-date digital tools and analytics to target operations and maintenance and cut unnecessary asset downtime. “With our turbines performing at their best, we will be in a position to supply Kenya with consistent, low-priced, green energy.”

He adds that LTWP hopes to encourage many more wind energy farms in Africa to work towards protecting the environment. “A portion of LTWP’s revenue goes to the Winds of Change foundation, which works with local communities to enable greater access to healthcare, clean water, and education in line with their own priorities.”

By increasing yearly energy production from the project based on insights delivered through in-depth performance monitoring, LTWP can likewise deliver greater community benefits, says Otieno.