As Wind Power Fleet Ages, More is Spent on Maintenance
Performance decline is a reality of wind power fleets when wind turbines age, requiring more operations and maintenance (O&M) costs to manage acceptable output. HIS Markit recently released a report that indicated that U.S. wind O&M spending is expected to increase to above $7.5 billion by 2030 – which is a 50% increase from spending in 2018.
Wind energy maintenance
As with all machinery, turbines are also subjected to ageing and the need to be maintained to preserve optimal and efficient output. If capacity factors were to decrease to such an extent with age, it would mean that wind farms will subsequently produce a lower lifetime output and that the cost of electricity at those plants will increase. A dataset collected from wind turbines between 1998 and 2005 has shown that O&M costs climbed from $30/kW/yr when the machines were still new, exceeding $65/kW/yr when the turbines had been operational for 11 years. Importantly, with the advent of improvements in turbine technology, the starting costs between 2006 to 2011 were much less at approximately $24/kW/yr, indicating significant improvement in reliability and lower O&M costs.
Older turbines are likely to fail more frequently or take longer be brought back online, with reasons being that they might encounter more serious failures, components might be more difficult to source, and operators not being as likely to hold comprehensive maintenance contracts for the machines. Ultimately, the efficiency of a wind power fleet comes down to how much effort an owner is willing to invest in each machine to keep the O&M costs lower in the long run.
For scheduled maintenance or services of your commercial wind power projects, get in touch with our qualified team at ANEMOI are here to assist you. Our services include gearbox oil changes, scheduled maintenance, manpower augmentation, and retrofits.
