EDP Renewables (EDPR) has selected GE’s Wind PowerUp, a GE Predictivity solution, to increase the power output of 402 GE 1.5-77 wind turbines located at five U.S. wind farms.
PowerUp is a customized software-enabled platform that increases a wind farm’s output. PowerUp harnesses the power of the Industrial Internet to analyze tens of thousands of data points on a wind farm every second, driving higher power output and creating new revenue streams for customers. It is an ecomagination qualified product.
When PowerUp is activated, a GE software program performs a complete before and after wind farm power performance analysis, validating the performance improvement. By adjusting performance dials, including speed, torque, pitch, aerodynamics and turbine controls, PowerUp is able to improve the power output of each unit and the overall wind farm.
PowerUp allows customers like EDPR to realize immediate benefits to their bottom line. It will also help EDPR incorporate new PowerUp technologies as they are developed and generate a higher power output and return on investment, the company said.
By using PowerUp, EDPR is expected to increase power, generating more than 420,000 megawatt hours of additional energy each year, which would provide the equivalent power used by 33,000 average U.S. homes.
The contract model between GE and EDPR is structured to minimize risk while enabling new technologies to be quickly added to the EDPR fleet as they are developed in the coming years.
“GE’s PowerUp software will allow us to improve the power curve and increase the annual energy production of these 402 wind turbines,” said Brian Hayes, executive vice president, EDP Renewables.
The wind farms that will be installing PowerUp are Blue Canyon V wind farm in Oklahoma, the Meadow Lake III wind farm in Indiana and the Top Crop I, Top Crop II and Railsplitter wind farms in Illinois.