A wind turbine data-sharing program, which aims to enhance operational performance visibility in the renewables sector, has been launched.
Equinor, Engie and Enel have all announced their participation in the “breakthrough” project, which is being run by peer-to-peer online platform O2OWIND.
It will allow the trio to share data, reducing the dependency on original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), improving analytics and developing a global benchmark.
By exchanging data on tens of thousands of operating turbines worldwide, it is thought asset owners will be able to turn insights into tangible advantages.
That includes improving wind farm operations, as well as the success rate of claims related to lower than expected power production.
The initiative will incorporate statistics from more than 10,000 turbines, with the key aim of unlocking operational insights.
A “significant number” of companies are expected to join the programme in the coming months, with a series of supporting seminars scheduled to take place at the beginning of 2021 to allow interested parties to assess the opportunities.
Mårten Nilsson, chief executive of O2OWIND and coordinator of the project, said: “This is a truly ambitious program that will put an end to the OEMs superior position with regards to global performance data.
“As it is today, only the OEMs can fully harvest the benefits of data analytics and benchmarking, which puts asset owners at a disadvantage.
“With this data-sharing collaboration, we are creating a baseline that OEMs always have to relate to. Since the strength of the baseline will be correlated to the amount of data that feeds our models, we strongly encourage all asset owners to attend the information seminars and join this exciting initiative.”
Thierry Kalfon, managing director renewables global business line at ENGIE, said: “This data sharing initiative is ground-breaking and an excellent opportunity for cross-industry win-win collaboration.
“We are convinced of the value of data and analytics to improve operational performance. Because in data analytics the quality of the results depends on the quantity of data available, we strongly believe that sharing data between peers will benefit all of us.”
José Alba, head of global O&M wind and storage at Enel Green Power, said: “We have a specific objective when we manage data, which consists in converting them to the greatest extent into useful information, allowing us to develop our own models for asset management.
“In order to carry out this strategy, we need the greatest possible amount of data, which we will acquire by joining this initiative.”
Sverre Trollnes, head of asset management at Equinor, added: “Considering the short production series of turbines within offshore wind, sharing data among owners is a necessity to gain better control.
“We see the O2O Data Sharing Initiative as a new tool to constantly improve our operation, by enabling our lead engineers to exchange with their peers and establish these much needed operational baselines.”