GE Renewable Energy has completed over 2,500 repowering upgrades in the U.S. – covering 4 GW of capacity at 36 different wind farms – since 2017. Moreover, the company expects to repower an additional 3 GW for 11 customers at over 25 new wind farms by the end of 2020.
The company notes that it also repowers projects with equipment originally supplied by non-GE manufacturers. Customers that have used GE Renewable Energy’s repowering services include NextEra, E.ON and MidAmerican Energy, among others.
Repowering involves replacing older units with new, higher-capacity turbines or retrofitting them with more efficient components – in both cases, significantly increasing wind farm production while extending the wind farm life. On average, for example, wind turbines repowered by GE have seen a 20% increase in annual energy production and 1.5% availability improvement from pre-repower performance.
Vikas Anand, GE Renewable Energy’s CEO for Americas onshore wind, says, “Repowering existing wind turbine technology is a complex endeavor, requiring the ability to blend new technology and equipment with aging machines. GE has the engineering, design and financing expertise to help our customers do that in a way that enables them to generate the maximum amount of clean, renewable energy from each wind turbine in existence in the most economic manner possible.”
