2nd International Summit on Wind Farms Life Extension

Smartive participated in the 2nd International Summit on Wind Farms Life Extension, organised by Asociación Empresarial Eólica (AEE). The motivation behind this conference was the fact Spain is one of the first countries in the world to face the aging of its wind turbines – by 2020 half of them will have surpassed fifteen years. Adding the fact that energy prices from wind farms has dropped in the last years, reducing OPEX is mandatory and consequently, life extension of the assets has become a hot topic.

The conference, which took place from 19th until 20th September in Madrid, covered all aspects of wind farms’ life extension – from simulation tools to determine the lifespan of turbines and new O&M business models to new supervision and diagnosis procedures and the recycling of components. As part of the digitalisation of wind farms subject, Smartive’s CEO Jordi Cusidó presented the company’s technology – predictive-preventive maintenance through intelligent platforms.

From the Summit, a few lessons learnt. Data is both clue and bottleneck – using data analysis one can optimise the operation of wind farms but it is necessary to guarantee we can access that data.