When your wind turbines are under full warranty, it’s easy to plan your operations and maintenance costs, because your risk is low. Any major unplanned maintenance events are covered in full, in addition to a percentage of the parts and labor. Warranty is usually covered for the first two to five years, and purchased as part of the original turbine cost.
At the end of the five-year warranty period though, owners and operators are faced with big decisions. Do I sign a long term service agreement with the Original Equipment Manager (OEM)? Do I employ a third party service provider? Is my risk low enough that I could do in house maintenance?
There are pros and cons to each of the three options, but the ultimate questions remain: how do I quantify my risk and how should I manage it?
Sentient Science can help in your decision making process by conducting a fleet risk assessment using our materials science-based advanced prognostics software. DigitalClone builds a virtual model of your fleet’s gearboxes and main bearings and simulates the stress and wear of the systems over time under the site’s operational conditions. This enables us to quantify major component damage risk by site and asset. Then, help compare the cost per year based on actual gearbox and main bearing failure rates verses the fixed OEM Service Agreement premium, which is typically expensive. We can also help identify whether or not the OEM service coverage is adequate and do a root cause analysis if our prognostics show a high probability of failure.
This webinar occured Wednesday, Aug. 17 at 8 am EDT and 2 pm EDT.