The owners of Alaska's Fire Island Wind Farm have selected UpWind Solutions to monitor the wind farm's drivetrains.
The 17.6 MW wind farm, owned and operated by Fire Island Wind LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Cook Inlet Region Inc. (CIRI), features 11 GE 1.6 MW wind turbines.
The product, UpWind Sentinel, helps owners and operators monitor the health of drivetrains to avoid unscheduled maintenance and costly component failures. The product can identify damaged high-speed gearbox bearings and alert an owner that scheduled bearing replacements are required to prevent a catastrophic failure and loss of production.
UpWind cites studies that show that predictive maintenance can reduce expenses by 47%, compared to unscheduled or reactive maintenance.
