How the Best Internal Data Teams Look at Their SCADA

A supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA)-data based condition monitoring system uses data already being collected at the wind turbine controller. SCADA data is a cost-effective way to monitor for early warning of failure and performance issues at a wind site.

Many wind asset owners and operators collect this data because they think they're supposed to. However, they don’t necessarily know if it is the right data for their assets or how to use it to get the most benefits from it. To help you understand how the best internal data teams look at their SCADA, we spoke with data engineers at WindESCo. This is what they had to say:

What is the best way to use SCADA at a wind plant?

SCADA is a monitoring system that uses data that is already collected. There are a few best practices for using SCADA at your wind plant. You can use it to identify actionable corrections at a wind plant, identify turbine-specific issues and site-themes based on patterns in your wind plant’s data. This identifies the signal from the noise, giving increased visibility to the true root cause of behavior at a wind site. 

How does WindESCo use SCADA?

With WindESCo Find, Fix, Measure we don’t need to attach hardware to your wind turbines in order to deliver 1-2% more annual energy production. We use high speed SCADA-data, rather than 10-minute data. 10-minute data is useful when looking for the average data over a 10-minute period, which makes sense for identifying seasonal trends. However, high speed SCADA is necessary to identify specific anomalies that cause wind asset underperformance. We use this data to look at the fine details at your wind site. This uncovers issues in patterns and yaw misalignment that would otherwise be overlooked using baseline aggregated data. Choosing to use high speed SCADA over 10-minute data to detect issues in your wind asset performance can increase your revenue and energy production by 1-2%.

Are wind plants safe from cyber attacks using this method?

WindESCo’s analysis is performed offline and at a separate location than your wind site. The results are implemented through normal parameters or operational setting change routines. It does not interact directly with turbine controllers. So, there are no cyber security concerns to accompany our use of SCADA.

Contact us or schedule a meeting to learn how WindESCo can help you improve your wind farm performance.