Nordex wind turbines with reliability-oriented maintenance in the future

Nordex has implemented reliability-oriented maintenance for all wind turbines which it has already constructed in Europe or will do so in the future. On this basis, it guarantees wind farm availability of 97%. Nordex customers are able to obtain this service in the premium and extended service packages with a term of up to 12 years thanks to the close ties between ongoing training of Nordex’s own staff, an end-to-end information system as well as a full-maintenance concept with condition-oriented maintenance.

One key element of the reliability-oriented maintenance system is the Service Management System, which Nordex will use in the future to document all error reports received from its turbines and product fleet in a database together with details of the procedures taken to remedy the fault. At the same time, life cycle files will be created for each individual turbine and product group comprising service activities, maintenance reports, down times, remedial times, disruptions, expert opinions as well as logs detailing new components. In this way, it is possible to track each turbine’s history and document the service activities taken in a manner which is transparent and understandable for the customer.

In addition to the straight recording of error messages, a data and knowledge management system with agent technology forms the core of active error avoidance. The intelligent evaluation routines incorporated in the IT system calculate logical links between the strain on components on the basis of the turbine status reports – e.g. wind speed, turbine speed or temperature. They then generate alerts sent by e-mail to the customer manager as soon as the turbines appear to be deviating from the required performance curves. This ensures swift and active intervention before below-average turbine response emerges.