Scalability
As the scale of the industry grows, with new players in the market coming on board every day, the scope of the wind industry is changing. This is seen in the portfolios of owners and operators with mixed-size fleets, with different turbine models, and more often now with the complexity of being a combination of wind, solar and storage. What is required is often unique and each segment comes with intricacies. What they need are independent and technology-agnostic solutions, a process to implement changes and to be able to use their data to support the running of their operations.
As the portfolios grow, so does the need to interface legacy systems, old and new tools, along with data management, software solutions, and smart analysts.
Energy sales
In the long-term, PPAs are becoming less common, with many projects seeing an advantage in the merchant market. More than just keeping your assets running and maximising power production, it is now imperative to maximise revenue through optimising energy sales. This will require more flexible operating strategies that are informed by market pricing where turbines can be uprated or derated to maximise the value of energy sold. Currently, there is no such feedback.
This produces an intriguing dynamic between supermajors and OEMs. There have been some ups and downs over the years between asset owners and OEMs, with the latter shifting strategic focus from design to aftermarket solutions. Traditionally, OEMs were able to exert control over a significant proportion of asset owners using their in-depth knowledge of turbine technology. However, substantial in-house knowledge built up by supermajors in combination with increasingly misaligned incentives indicates a shift in power balance away from OEMs towards owners.
Digitisation
Digitisation and technology adoption are central in providing the solutions necessary to streamline businesses, increase efficiencies and ease the scalability journey. Agnostic solutions can provide whole teams – from field services to CEOs – with access to the information they need instantaneously, to aid better collaboration, communication and importantly enable better decision making in O&M which in turn means more reliable, optimised performance of assets.
These tools require a platform that integrates different analytics and data.
Currently, the biggest challenge to the wind industry achieving operational excellence is that a lot of the data is siloed, held by different people, using the data for a specific task. By bringing those data sources together owners can tap into even greater potential for driving up efficiencies across their global portfolios.
Providing a holistic solution for the future is crucial – one that makes AI explainable, and normalises data so it can be viewed within context so that owners and operators can move forward confidently.
ONYX Insight plays a role in being able to provide asset owners with a future view, giving them access to one centralised data platform – the AI HUB. ONYX’s solutions enable wind owners and operators to make clear data-enabled decisions on how to manage their fleets such as knowing when to curtail or when to push their assets, and having this knowledge is critical.
The development of such a centralised platform is not a trivial task. It requires deep multidisciplinary expertise, combining analytics and data management as well as operational knowledge. We work with our customers to develop such independent solutions, giving them the freedom to maintain control over their assets and drive the profitability and competitiveness of their business.
Find out more about how ONYX can support your O&M challenges.
