Steve Mills

Electrical cable which connects the wind turbines to each other and the offshore substation

The amount of energy generated in a year. Gross AEP is the predicted annual energy production based on the turbine power curve, excluding losses. Net AEP is the metered annual energy production at the offshore substation, so includes wind farm downtime, wake, electrical and other losses.

Wind turbines extract energy from the wind and downstream there is a wake from the wind turbine, where wind speed is reduced.  As the flow proceeds downstream, there is a spreading of the wake and the wake recovers towards free stream conditions.  The wake effect is the aggregated influence on…

Data acquisition, transmission and storage system covering all wind farm assets. The SCADA system enable individual wind turbines, the wind farm substations and associated wind farm equipment to communicate operational status including faults. This allows operators to remotely diagnose faults and issue commands to stop, start and reset turbines and…

REC, represent the environmental attributes of the power produced from renewable energy projects and are sold separate from commodity electricity. RECs are the UK form of Green Certificates.

A value which refers to the probability of an outcome. The higher the “P” factor, the more likely that a certain outcome will be met or surpassed. Commonly used in wind or solar resource studies, a P factor may represent the minimum number  kWh which WTGs or solar panels of a certain nameplate rating at…

OMS includes wind farm OMS and onshore transmission OMS. Definitions of O, M and S are as follows: Operation: day-to-day management including all the work not covered under maintenance and service. For wind farm OMS, this includes cost for port facilities, buildings, management personnel, environmental monitoring and community engagement; Maintenance…

Windfarms constructed in bodies of water offshore, where higher wind speeds are able to generate greater electric energy. Wind turbine generators (WTGs) in any marine environment count as “offshore”

The structure used to transform and transfer the energy collected by the wind turbines to land in the most efficient manner. It may involve increasing the voltage, providing reactive compensation and converting the current from AC to DC. Some wind farms may have more than one offshore substation and equipment…

Energy captured from ocean waves, tides, currents, salinity gradients and ocean temperature differences. Wave energy converters capture the energy of surface waves to generate electricity; tidal stream generators use kinetic energy of moving water to power turbines; and tidal barrages are essentially dams that cross tidal estuaries and capture energy…