Condition monitoring of wind farm based on wireless mesh network

Since the last years of twentieth century the use of wind energy rapidly increased and it is imposed as one of the best alternatives to burning fossil fuels. Nowadays, in renewable energy resources, wind energy is the leading candidate for electricity production due to its lower investment cost and well-developed technology in manufacturing high-power wind turbines. Basing on a Reliability Centred Maintenance (RCM) analysis, this paper focuses on the use of a Wireless Mesh Network in order to monitoring several condition parameters to identify possible incipient failures analysing the health-status of the turbine. The objective of the RCM is to identify the appropriate maintenance task for each item. Condition Monitoring is one of the possible task choices and represents a cost-effective solution to minimize the plant downtime. The case study identifies the most critical components of wind turbine and propose a set of possible sensors that could be included in the Wireless Mesh Network to monitor the condition parameters of the turbine.