Development of On-Line Condition Monitoring System for Wind Turbines in Plant Level

The maintenance cost of wind turbines has become the significant challenge for the wind power enterprise. One available way to reduce the cost is to monitor the wind turbines and make preventative maintenance. In this paper, an on-line condition monitoring system for wind turbines in plant level was presented. A 4-level monitoring structure was designed for the system, and the network communication was used to transmit the data efficiently. A high performance digital signal processor (DSP) was used as the processing core in the signal acquisition device. A computer software was also developed for data analysis and remote management of the monitoring device. The vibrations, temperature, and some other information of the turbines were gathered synchronously. The monitoring center in wind farm, the data center of wind power enterprise and the remote service center of equipment supplier can know the operation condition of wind turbines well. It would be useful for wind power enterprise to obtain the operation condition of wind turbine and reduce the cost of maintenance.