Challenge
As the turbines leave warranty SSE are liable for any undiscovered failures and the associated financial risks. As part of the process SSE need a strong specialist partner to support them in their transition to in house O&M.
Engineering and Consultancy
Scottish Southern Energy partner with ONYX to optimise O&M & enable confident warranty claims.
- x140 Siemens 3.6 MW end of warranty campaign
- Data-driven approach reducing cost and increases quality
Customer
Scottish Southern Energy (SSE) is one of the Big Six Energy Suppliers in the UK. SSE works closely with ONYX Insight, which provides its vibration condition monitoring service using fleetMONITOR.
Services
Benefits
Through combination of a thorough understanding of the turbines derived from the monitoring service and the engineering expertise applied to the drivetrain inspections and reporting; ONYX delivered a reduced scope end of warranty inspection campaign on time and to budget. ONYX provides SSE with condition monitoring services, which give advanced warning of major component failures, allowing them to plan well in advance for jack-up campaigns.
Greater Gabbard Wind Farm is the world’s largest operational offshore wind farm, at 504MW with 140 Siemens 3.6 MW wind turbines. The 147sqkm site, a 50:50 joint venture between SSE and RWE, is situated 23km off the Suffolk coast and is operated by SSE plc, the second largest supplier of gas and electricity in the UK.
As part of the site turbine asset integrity management strategy and in support of an End of Warranty (EOW) programme, SSE selected ONYX Insight to assist with major component vibration monitoring analysis and physical on-site inspections. The capabilities of ONYX and its fleetMONITOR software and drivetrain expertise allow for improved transparency of the assets’ condition and forward planning decision making.
Data-driven approach with fleetMONITOR reduces SSE cost for conducting EOW inspections
ONYX has been working with SSE at Greater Gabbard Wind Farm since 2012, performing “shadow” monitoring on their vibration and SCADA data and providing drivetrain inspections on selected assets. During this time, ONYX has delivered a value-adding service, empowering SSE to make better operational decisions on major component asset integrity. The shadow monitoring allowed SSE and ONYX to build expertise in advance of the end of warranty programme.
Conducting an EOW inspection campaign on 140 turbines, offshore, is logistically challenging and expensive. Fortunately, SSE had built great confidence in ONYX’s capability to identify turbines at risk. They took a data-driven approach, leveraging the shadow monitoring and ‘deep dive’ health assessment near to EOW, to reduce the number of physical inspections needed.
The quality of the monitoring reports delivered by ONYX Insight prior to the EOW was such that SSE was able to decide to reduce the number of drivetrain inspections significantly. The turbines inspected were targeted based on a data-driven approach. This targeted approach to inspection saved the customer a significant sum in the order of hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Using fieldPRO to increase efficiency and quality of inspections
To increase the efficiency of inspections, ONYX’s field inspection software, fieldPRO, was used to gather all the inspection data uptower, including borescope images, which can be seamlessly uploaded into the inspection database. fieldPRO is designed to save time on reporting, improve the standardisation of data capture and benchmark damage progression. For the project manager, fieldPRO allowed terminology and data to be ready to review as each inspection is completed.
For the inspector, it reduces administration with a streamlined approach to the job. fieldPRO is a further addition to the data-driven approach to wind farm O&M. Every inspection photograph and comment is recorded in a database for SSE, allowing the data to be mined for different purposes over the life of the asset.
Plan smarter, inspect faster, and reduce offshore campaign costs.
From condition monitoring to targeted inspections, ONYX helps you make confident, data-led decisions that reduce risk and save significant costs — just like SSE at Greater Gabbard.