Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000. SAND NO. 2011-XXXXP

Panel:EstablishingaSuccessfulBladeMaintenanceProg.• JoshCrayton,DirectorofBusinessDevelopment, RopePartner• JeffreyHammit,PrincipalTechnicalSpecialist,NextEraEnergy• OlenRichardson,President,BladeConsultantServices• GaryKanaby,CommercialManager,WindCom• Chair: CarstenWestergaard,SeniorAdvisor(Cont),Wind&water,SandiaNationalLaboratories(track354440anddept.side)

DOEWindProgramMission

§ WeseektoincreasethedeploymentofwindenergysystemstooffsetcarbonintheatmosphereandincreasedomesticenergyproductbytechnologydevelopmentguidedbyDepartmentofEnergyWindVisiontowards35%windpenetrationin2050:

Ø Wind Power Resources and Site CharacterizationØ Wind Plant Technology AdvancementØ Supply Chain, Manufacturing and LogisticsØ Wind Power Performance, Reliability, and SafetyØ Wind Electricity Delivery and IntegrationØ Wind Siting and PermittingØ Collaboration, Education, and OutreachØ Workforce Development

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WindEnergyTechnologiesObjective

§ Servethenationsneedsbyprovidingworldleadingexpertise:1. RotorSystemsInnovation2. InnovativeExperimentationinWindPlantTechnologiesand

Operations3. QuantificationandReductionofUncertaintiesinWindPlant

ModelingandExperimentation4. WindPowerPerformance,Reliability,andSafety

§ Weaccomplishouropen-innovationgoalsthroughanation-leadingengineeringteam,leveragingthebroadercapabilitiesofthelargestUSengineeringlaboratoryandutilizingthemostadvancedandwelldocumentedwindplantresearchfacilityintheworld

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WhyInnovativeRotors?§ SinglelargestdriverofLCOEreduction§ LongerbladesbothreduceLCOEandallowforincreaseddeployment

§ Largerbladesrequirebreakthroughsin:§ Modular/on-Site Construction§ Loadcontrol§ Low-costhighstrengthfiber§ Manufacturing quality

§ Improvementstodesignstandardsareneededforlowwind-speedrotors

§ Tallertowersenablelongerblades§ Newopportunitiesmaybefoundinbladeinnovationcombinedwithwindplantcontrols

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UnplannedReliabilityEventsEstimates

5Preliminary crude numbers misc. collected data from workgroups, discussion and presentations

Lifetimecostperturbine(not includingscheduledmaintenance)

Annualfailurerateofrepairableitems

Fractionoffleetwhichwillexperiencemajorreplacementinlifetime(20yrs)

Blade $150,400 16% 14%Gear+bearing $189,200 6% 42%Generator $112,200 3% 25%Other $44,120 39%Forcedoutage /resets $20,645Totalover20yrs $516,565*

Hereofreplacement $330,600

Unscheduledcost $5.1perMWh

Unplanned reliability cost, 2 MW @ 98% availability

Aninsurancecompany’sperspective§ Observations:

§ Costisknown§ Highlevelrootcauseis

known,sometimesatalowerlevel

§ Limitedtechnicaldataonfundamentalmechanisms

§ Environmentplaysanimportantrole

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Source: GCube, September 2014

EnvironmentallyinducedReliabilityEvents

7The data on environmental is not quantified at this stage and are fleet average. I.e. icing is a regional effect

Failure inducedby Component Annualfailurerateofrepairableitems(numberisrelativetoallcomponentrepairs)

Fractionoffleetwhichwillexperiencemajorreplacementinlifetime(20years)

Lightning 35 days/year

Blade 3% 4%

Ice Blade ? ?

Erosion Blade High Almost none

Extremewindw/wovibration

Blade ? 6%

Corrosionandsurfacedegradation

Blade ? ?

Misc. Blade ? 4%

RequirementsToDetermineTheBenefitOfPro-activeVsReactive?§ Measureandbenchmark

§ Howdoweaccuratelycreatedtechnical reliabilitydataforblades?§ Isitmeaningfultocorrelatetechnicalandeconomicalbenchmarks?§ Canweusehistoricaldatatopredictthefuture?

§ Howdowequantifytheactualoperatingenvelopeandinclude:§ Environmentalconditions?§ Operationalconditions?§ Data-miningSCADAdataforbothperformanceandreliability?§ Doweneedtohavenewsensorsintheblade?§ Canthesedatabeusedtocontroland/orextendedthelifetimeofawindfarm

(remainingusefullife)?§ Fieldactions

§ Doweneedbetterfieldinspectionsandfollow-upmethods?§ Effectsofstructuralimprovementsorrepairs?§ Datacollection?

§ Verificationofthestartingpoint§ Canfielddatabeusedtoimprovefuturedesign?

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Exampleofdiscreteseriesofeventswhichwillbiasanaverageunreasonably

§ Specificturbine inMWclasshasapeakofbladechallenge(s) in2011.Levelnormalized in2013anddisappeared in2014

§ Relativeyoung turbines, presumablyanissueofproprietarynature

§ Blademayonlybeinspectedevery2ndor3rd year

§ Sub-conclusion:§ Includingdiscrete(infancy)events

willnot supportconclusionoffutureperformance

§ Inspectionmethodsandfrequencywillbiasinter-annualresults

9Graph source: Coffey (2014)

Lightning:RegionalRiskVariation§ Technicalreport IEC/TR61400-24:2002

§ Basedondatafrom2800“smallturbines”inNorthernEU(<15days)andinnerGermany(<35daysofthunderstorms)

§ Annual failurerate0.4to1.4%§ UShas5to100daysofthunderstorms,

0.3%to5%§ Midwesthas~55daywithanannual

failurerateupto3%§ Sub-conclusion:

§ Fleetaveragewithoutconsidering regionalexposure isfairlymeaningless§ Awelldocumentstandardfornormalization combinedwithanational

fleetaveragecouldimproveourunderstanding§ ManyUSowners,hasmoreaccumulateexperiencethanwhattheIEC

standardisbasedupon

10NOAA.gov, Cannata (2014), Coffery(2014), Nissam (2013), LM Wind power

Lightning:TechnologybiasandSizebias§ Lightning risk,accordingtoIEC61400-24and

ported frombuilding code,suggest riskisproportional toheight squared, includinglandscapetopology

§ Experienceshowsmuchhigherheightdependency~R4

§ Ontheflip side,improvedLPSsystemsarereported tohaveasmuchasanX10improvement

§ Sub-conclusion: Historicalfleetaveragewillnotpredictthefuturewithoutsignificantconsiderations totechnology andsizecorrection

11Cannata (2014), Coffery (2014), Green (2014), LM Wind power

Proportional to ~R4

ObservationsandTagging

§ Gearandgeneratorshavereceivedalotofattention

§ Bladesarereceivingmoreattention.Morefrequentinspectionsareincreasingawareness

§ Lackofcommonnamingandtaggingmakesdirectcomparisonoftechnicaldatadifficult

§ NewCREWobjectivesistodevelopacommonplatformthroughanauditingprocessandaggregatetheseintoahighlevelbenchmarkwithmoredata

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A controlled connection between rotor and rotor wake impact every aspect

of the plant

Rotorsystemsinnovation§ Thewindplantrotorscontrolsanddriveseveryaspectofasuccessful

windplantoperation.Advancedrotorconceptsoffergreatpotentialforimprovingreliablewindplantperformancewhilereducingenergycosts

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§ InnovativerotorsflownattheNationalRotorTestbedhostedatDOE/SandiaSWiFT windplantofferselaborateverificationandvalidationarealandcontrolledwindplantenvironment,documentedtoreduceexperimentaluncertaintiesandtherebythereliabilityoftheresults

InnovativeExperimentationinWindPlantTechnologiesandOperations§ Ensuringsitesuitability,reproducibility,resilienceand

efficiencyofwindplantstoproduceusableelectricpower

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Variability

Tower vibration

§ Windplantcontrollers§ Cybersecurityandmicrogrid

integration§ Developmentandtestingof

newflowdiagnosticswithcommercialpartners

§ Dataanalytics(SCADA)windplantperformanceandreliabilityanalysis

§ Environmentalimpact,suchasradarinterferencemitigation

QuantificationandReductionofUncertaintiesinWindPlantModelingandExperimentation

§ High-fidelitymodelingofwindplantsforreductioninCOE§ Accuratepredictionofwindplantpowerproduction§ Understandingofcomplexaero-structuralloadscenarios

§ Leveragingofnuclearweaponssimulationtechnology§ Sandia’sNalu computationalfluiddynamicscodehasbeen

chosenasaDOEexascale applicationcodeforexploitationofnext-generationsupercomputinghardware.

§ Nalu isanopensourcecodebornfromtheFuegocode,usedoriginallyforabnormalfireenvironmentsforstockpilesystems.

§ Validation§ ValidationexperimentstobeperformedatSWiFT andother

facilities§ Quantifieduncertaintybounds onsimulationpredictions-

neededfordecisions impactingwindplantdesignandfinancing

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ANalu simulationofstalledflowpastawindturbine bladesection,performed intheDOETrinity supercomputer.

WindPowerPerformance,Reliability,andSafety§ Sandialeadseffortsinwindturbinereliabilityresearch,specifically

focusingon:§ Nondestructive inspection§ Effectsofbladedefects§ Compositematerialsresearch§ Structuralhealthmonitoring§ Structuredynamics§ Windloading§ Fullsystemhazardandrootcauseanalysis

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Innovativewindplanttechnologyplatformforthefutureindustrypartnerships

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Shorttermprogramgoals:§ Reduceturbine-turbine inter-

actionandwindplantunder-performance

§ Developadvancedwindturbine rotors

§ Public,open-source inorder toproducehighaccurateresultssupporting developmentofadvancedsimulations

Facilities:§ Threevariable-speedvariable-pitchmodified windturbineswith

fullpowerconversionandextensivesensorsuite§ Twoheavilyinstrumented in-flowmeteorological towers§ MassiveLIDARinstrumentation (inthepipeline)§ Site-widetime-synchronizeddatacollection§ HometotheNationalRotorTestbed

Thankyou!

ThisworkissupportedbytheUSDOEEEREWindandWaterPowerProgram.