scholarly journals Analyzing a Decade of Wind Turbine Accident News with Topic Modeling

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 12757
Author(s):  
Gürdal Ertek ◽  
Lakshmi Kailas

Despite the significance and growth of wind energy as a major source of renewable energy, research on the risks of wind turbines in the form of accidents and failures has attracted limited attention. Research that applies data analytics methodologically in this context is scarce. The research presented here, upon construction of a text corpus of 721 selected wind turbine accident and failure news reports, develops and applies a custom-developed data analytics framework that integrates tabular analysis, visualization, text mining, and machine learning. Topic modeling was applied for the first time to identify and classify recurring themes in wind turbine accident news, and association mining was applied to identify contextual terms associated with death and injury. The tabular and visual analyses relate accidents to location (offshore vs. onshore), wind turbine life cycle phases (transportation, construction, operation, and maintenance), and the incidence of death and injury. As one of the insights, more incidents were found to occur during operation and transportation. Through topic modeling, topics associated most with deaths and injuries were revealed. The results could benefit wind turbine manufacturers, service providers, energy companies, insurance companies, government bodies, non-profit organizations, researchers, and other stakeholders in the wind energy sector.

Author(s):  
S. G. Ignatiev ◽  
S. V. Kiseleva

Optimization of the autonomous wind-diesel plants composition and of their power for guaranteed energy supply, despite the long history of research, the diversity of approaches and methods, is an urgent problem. In this paper, a detailed analysis of the wind energy characteristics is proposed to shape an autonomous power system for a guaranteed power supply with predominance wind energy. The analysis was carried out on the basis of wind speed measurements in the south of the European part of Russia during 8 months at different heights with a discreteness of 10 minutes. As a result, we have obtained a sequence of average daily wind speeds and the sequences constructed by arbitrary variations in the distribution of average daily wind speeds in this interval. These sequences have been used to calculate energy balances in systems (wind turbines + diesel generator + consumer with constant and limited daily energy demand) and (wind turbines + diesel generator + consumer with constant and limited daily energy demand + energy storage). In order to maximize the use of wind energy, the wind turbine integrally for the period in question is assumed to produce the required amount of energy. For the generality of consideration, we have introduced the relative values of the required energy, relative energy produced by the wind turbine and the diesel generator and relative storage capacity by normalizing them to the swept area of the wind wheel. The paper shows the effect of the average wind speed over the period on the energy characteristics of the system (wind turbine + diesel generator + consumer). It was found that the wind turbine energy produced, wind turbine energy used by the consumer, fuel consumption, and fuel economy depend (close to cubic dependence) upon the specified average wind speed. It was found that, for the same system with a limited amount of required energy and high average wind speed over the period, the wind turbines with lower generator power and smaller wind wheel radius use wind energy more efficiently than the wind turbines with higher generator power and larger wind wheel radius at less average wind speed. For the system (wind turbine + diesel generator + energy storage + consumer) with increasing average speed for a given amount of energy required, which in general is covered by the energy production of wind turbines for the period, the maximum size capacity of the storage device decreases. With decreasing the energy storage capacity, the influence of the random nature of the change in wind speed decreases, and at some values of the relative capacity, it can be neglected.


Author(s):  
J. V. Muruga Lal Jeyan ◽  
Akhila Rupesh ◽  
Jency Lal

The aerodynamic module combines the three-dimensional nonlinear lifting surface theory approach, which provides the effective propagated incident velocity and angle of attack at the blade section separately, and a two-dimensional panel method for steady axisymmetric and non-symmetric flow has to be involved to obtain the 3D pressure and velocity distribution on the wind mill model blade. Wind mill and turbines have become an economically competitive form of efficiency and renewable work generation. In the abroad analytical studies, the wind turbine blades to be the target of technological improvements by the use of highly possible systematic , aerodynamic and design, material analysis, fabrication and testing. Wind energy is a peculiar form of reduced form of density source of power. To make wind power feasible, it is important to optimize the efficiency of converting wind energy into productivity source. Among the different aspects involved, rotor aerodynamics is a key determinant for achieving this goal. There is a tradeoff between thin airfoil and structural efficiency. Both of which have a strong impact on the cost of work generated. Hence the design and analysis process for optimum design requires determining the load factor, pressure and velocity impact and optimum thickness distribution by finding the effect of blade shape by varying thickness on the basis of both the aerodynamic output and the structural weight.


2003 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-288
Author(s):  
F. J. Mostert

Enterprises can manage risks in two fundamental ways, namely by physical risk control and by risk financing. The latter comprises external and internal risk financing. As this paper focuses on the latter of these concepts, due attention is paid to the main forms of internal risk financing. Charging losses to current operating profit, arranging loan facilities and implementing equity financing programmes are different forms of internal risk financing. The nature, advantages and various types of captive insurance companies are considered as holding companies can utilise this form of internal risk financing. Special attention is paid to the use of contingency funds as a way of internal risk financing by applying a modelling approach. The conclusions reached should be valuable to business enterprises in particular, but also to non-profit organisations and individuals.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (7) ◽  
pp. 693
Author(s):  
Anna Dóra Sæþórsdóttir ◽  
Margrét Wendt ◽  
Edita Tverijonaite

The interest in harnessing wind energy keeps increasing globally. Iceland is considering building its first wind farms, but its landscape and nature are not only a resource for renewable energy production; they are also the main attraction for tourists. As wind turbines affect how the landscape is perceived and experienced, it is foreseeable that the construction of wind farms in Iceland will create land use conflicts between the energy sector and the tourism industry. This study sheds light on the impacts of wind farms on nature-based tourism as perceived by the tourism industry. Based on 47 semi-structured interviews with tourism service providers, it revealed that the impacts were perceived as mostly negative, since wind farms decrease the quality of the natural landscape. Furthermore, the study identified that the tourism industry considered the following as key factors for selecting suitable wind farm sites: the visibility of wind turbines, the number of tourists and tourist attractions in the area, the area’s degree of naturalness and the local need for energy. The research highlights the importance of analysing the various stakeholders’ opinions with the aim of mitigating land use conflicts and socioeconomic issues related to wind energy development.


2010 ◽  
Vol 44-47 ◽  
pp. 1672-1676
Author(s):  
Jing Feng Mao ◽  
Guo Qing Wu ◽  
Ai Hua Wu ◽  
Xu Dong Zhang ◽  
Yang Cao ◽  
...  

This paper presents a theoretical analysis and experimental evaluation of the switched reluctance generator (SRG) for off-grid variable-speed wind energy applications. The detailed model, control parameters and operational characteristics of the SRG as well as variable-speed wind turbine are discussed. In order to drive the wind energy conversion system (WECS) to the point of maximum aerodynamic efficiency, a SRG power output feedback control strategy which optimized angle position-current chopping control cooperating PI regulator is proposed. The control strategy is also demonstrated by means of Matlab/Simulink. Moreover, an experimental test system is set up, which a cage induction machine is used to emulate the variable-speed wind turbine. The experimental results validate the proposed control strategy and confirm the SRG performance.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document