"Internet +" triggers new ideas, wind power industry explores information technology to reduce costs

China Energy Storage Network: Recently, the National Energy Administration announced the operation of wind power grid connection in the first three quarters of this year. Data shows that from January to September this year, the national wind power abandoned 39.47 billion kWh, with an average abandonment rate of 19%. Compared with the figures of 26% in the first quarter and 21% in the first half of the year, China's wind abandonment level has steadily declined again. The positive wind abandonment data and the boost in confidence in industry development have also shifted more attention to reducing costs.

"The current cost of wind power development is relatively high. And compared with photovoltaic power, the core problem is that its cost reduction path is not clear." At the "Internet + Wind Power Development Opportunities and Challenges Technology Forum" held in Nanjing recently, Li Peng, director of the New Energy and Renewable Energy Department of the National Energy Administration, analyzed that the downward space for hardware costs in the photovoltaic industry is not large, and efficiency improvement may be the main breakthrough for future cost reduction, but for the entire wind power industry, the path to reduce costs is still under exploration, and relying on the information technology of "Internet +" may be a feasible direction. "Unlike traditional thermal power, in the process of wind power generation, each wind turbine is a relatively independent power generation element. This model is more in line with Internet thinking, and networked information collection and analysis management may have more applicable space. Through 'Internet +' to achieve a reduction in the cost per kilowatt-hour of the entire life cycle, there is actually room for optimization in every link."

The prediction and forecasting link has great potential

"At present, the best region for domestic wind power consumption is the western part of Inner Mongolia. In fact, the western part of Inner Mongolia attaches great importance to the forecasting link and incorporates the forecasting results into the dispatch according to the daily plan. Excluding the power sent to the east, the wind power generation in the western part of Inner Mongolia this year accounts for about 15% of the country's total." Li Peng said that if wind power wants to be integrated into a power system on a large scale, the forecasting link must be further deepened. "Moreover, the equipment and systems used by many domestic companies engaged in wind power forecasting are purchased from abroad, which also shows that we still have a lot of work to do."

In this regard, some domestic companies that are looking at "Internet +" have begun to explore and have achieved initial results. According to Xu Fengfei, Solution Director of Envision Energy (Jiangsu) Co., Ltd., the Greenwich platform currently developed and used by the company is providing solutions for the precise evaluation of low-wind-speed wind farms. It has become an industry consensus to reduce the risk of low-wind-speed development through the wind tower solution. "Take a wind farm with a capacity of 300MW as an example. 14 wind towers can well represent the entire field. Compared with adjacent wind farms, under the same resource level, the annual power generation hours can be optimized and increased by more than 18%." At the same time, Xu Fengfei said that based on the data analysis platform, plans can also be formulated according to different power generation, internal rate of return and net present value targets to suit the individual preferences of the owner.

In addition, Li Peng emphasized that the improvement of forecasting capabilities will further benefit the development of low-wind speed areas. "The focus of China's energy consumption is in the central and eastern regions. The transformation of provinces such as Guangdong, Shandong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu is the key to my country's energy transformation. Therefore, the low wind speed in the central and eastern regions must be maintained."

There is still a gap in the marketing system of electricity sales

As the power reform continues to advance, power sales have become a hot topic in the industry. Li Xingyun, general manager of Longyuan (Beijing) Carbon Asset Management Technology Co., Ltd., pointed out that the liberalization of power sales has made wind power companies face more intense competition in the fight for high-quality customers. Since wind power companies have long focused on the power generation end and the sales side is more oriented to single large customers of the power grid, although wind power transactions such as direct supply to large users have been carried out, they are mostly unilateral price cuts and profit concessions under the leadership of the government. Wind power companies have not established a complete marketing system.

Li Xingyun believes that as the future electricity seller, wind power companies will need to accumulate and analyze data to differentiate themselves from the competition. "The use of big data can provide wind power companies with user management, load forecasting, intelligent quotations, transaction simulations, and data reports, which can fully solve the huge amount of data sorting and transaction strategies under various supply and demand relationships that wind power companies will face in the future as electricity sellers."

Based on the current situation of power sales liberalization in some pilot provinces, experts at the meeting suggested that wind power companies should make full use of Internet thinking to build new systematic marketing channels. For example, they should organize power resources through self-owned power allocation and external power procurement, and explore sales methods through customer classification management and special power supply package design. In addition, Internet tools can also be used to provide users with value-added services including remote power sales, energy consumption information display, remote diagnosis of comprehensive energy-saving consulting services, comprehensive low-carbon energy solutions, contract energy management, etc., so as to achieve innovation in the marketing system of power sales.

There is still room for operation and maintenance market

"If the operation and maintenance of wind farms are done to the extreme, according to previous estimates by some institutions and companies, the cost per kilowatt-hour can be reduced by 1.5-2 cents. Especially with the increase in installed capacity in recent years, the wind farm operation and maintenance market has already been formed." Li Peng believes that wind farms in the future should be highly automated and unmanned, and the operating conditions of each wind turbine can be fully reflected and summarized through data analysis, thereby improving efficiency and reducing costs.

Zhang Tao, executive secretary general of the Zhongguancun Big Data Industry Alliance, pointed out that the current annual loss in my country due to equipment reliability and equipment performance is about 8%-10% of the total power generation, equivalent to about 14.9-18.6 billion kWh. It has been verified that by improving equipment reliability and power generation performance through big data application technology, the total power generation can be increased by 3%-5%, about 5.6-9.3 billion kWh.

In this regard, Peng Zedong, product director of the intelligent energy service operation and maintenance prediction of Goldwind Technology, also said that wind turbine failure shutdown and wind turbine power generation performance degradation are the biggest causes of power generation loss. At present, wind farms generally adopt post-maintenance on site, and preventive maintenance still faces many difficulties and lacks the necessary technical support means. "Preventive maintenance based on big data will become the main direction in the future. At present, Goldwind is committed to laying the foundation for preventive maintenance by building a big data platform." According to Peng Zedong, in September 2014, the 11# unit of a certain wind farm avoided the loss of blade replacement through blade monitoring and early warning. "At that time, monitoring and early warning were issued, and there was no problem with the appearance of the on-site inspection. After matching the maintenance time, the inspection found the hidden danger of cracking, and timely repair avoided the loss of emergency replacement of blades." Peng Zedong told reporters that if the average number of wind turbine failures is reduced by 8.7%, the spare parts consumption per kilowatt will be reduced by 21%. "Big data analysis based on multiple data sources is the key to achieving early warning of large components."

At the meeting, many companies including Yueneng Technology, Rongzhi Rixin, Zhongheng Borui, Mingyang Wind Power and others discussed various technical routes of "Internet + Wind Power". In this regard, Qin Haiyan, executive director of the China Renewable Energy Society and secretary general of the China Wind Energy Association, also pointed out that the wind power industry should combine its own reality, while developing "big data" methods, reasonably innovate and optimize traditional "small data" to avoid falling into misunderstandings.