Wind power blade defects pushed operation and maintenance market to become hot
In the first quarter this year, newly increased grid connection capacity reached 4.7 million KW, by the end of march, accumulative total grid capacity 101.07 million KW, year-on-year growth of 25%, accomplished ‘twelfth five-year’ plan ahead of schedule. Recently, a number of wind power equipment companies issued the 2014 financial reports, which show, the fan, blades and other equipment manufacturing performance has significant growth.
In the continuous rise of wind power equipment, the huge operation and maintenance market is also quietly forming. According to MAKE prediction, based on a two-year warranty before 2010 and after a 3 ~ 5 years warranty trend domestically, at the end of 2014, 47 Gw wind power installed capacity has reached the quality assurance contract, and affected by many factors, the quality assurance capacity is expected to account for only 55%. As more policies are introduced in the next three to five years, the fan technology and quality will continue to improve, and the quality assurance routine will become more and more standard. The proportion of successful quality assurance will be increased to 94% by the end of 2020.
With the development of wind power operation and maintenance in China, blade operation and maintenance is becoming a hot spot. The integrated industrial chain of blades has been preliminarily formed.
‘Review the development of wind-power blades manufacturing technology in China in recent 7 years, it has initially formed a new industry which includes the design, manufacturing, materials, equipment, standards, testing, certification. In the development of large offshore wind blades and land type low speed high bending strength large blades, we have also made great progress and technical breakthrough.’said by Zhao Yuanxin who is the founder and CEO of China wind power material equipment network. In terms of wind power installed capacity, China has become the world's first, by the end of 2014, calculate as each fan 2.5 megawatts, existing about 36,000 domestic turbines. And for wind power blades from 750 KW, 2 MW to 6 MW, China now has the independent research and development ability.
Published research report from Pengbo new energy finance shows that wind power installed capacity in China is equivalent to about 65000 fans’ installed capacity, and the number is rapidly growing at the rate of more than 30 a day. At present, the cost of operation and maintenance in China is about 500 million USD per year, and by 2022, the estimated annual operation and maintenance cost will increase to reach 3 billion USD. From 2015 to 2022, the total operation and maintenance cost of wind farms in China will go up to 16 billion USD.
By 2014, more than two-thirds of production fans in China are still under warranty. In the next few years, with the improvement in the quality of new fan and the aging of old fan, the scale of fan out of warranty will increase sharply.
In 2016, there will be about 14 ~ 18 GW fans out of the warranty. In 2017 and 2018, the annual growth will reach 26 GW and 30 GW. By 2022, there will be an accumulative total of 187 GW of fans out of the warranty.
Blade is one of the key equipment of wind power unit, and its operation and maintenance also takes a very important position in the whole wind power operation and maintenance. But with a background of rapid development, it also revealed problems. Dong Lei, the Chief engineer of Guangdong MingYang Wind Power Industrial Group Co., Ltd, holds the opinion that blade operation and maintenance cost sometimes is very high as the trend of equipment installation market and the proportion of aging equipment. The warranty period is three to five years, irrespective of the blade or the host. According to statistics, there are basically three main risks of blades: raw materials, manufacturing or process defects, design reasons. Serious quality accidents usually occur within the first five years. In recent years, there have been a batch of accidents of blades, which have to be recalled and replaced. Blade operation and maintenance should be detected as soon as possible
‘Blades need to form a uniform standard. Most of the fans are in remote places, and transportation and time are very expensive. Blades daily operation, routine check standard should be specified on the one hand, on the other hand, basic training of common knowledge such as early sign of rain erosion, should be given to maintenance personnel. These knowledge need to impart to on-the-spot personnel for detecting problem as soon as possible and reducing post-processing cost.’ said by Jia Yijun vice manager from operation and maintenance department of CGN Wind Power Co. Ltd. How to ensure the operation cycle life of 20 years is very important. Blade should not be changed in the life period due to external force such as a lightning strike. To deal with problems like lightning strike, we can establish some emergency compensation plans with insurance company and set up some mould reserve plans with blade manufacturers.
Be the same as other wind power operation and maintenance, blade operation and maintenance is a comprehensive and systematic work which needs to improve its quality in many aspects. Certification and testing are important aspects of it. Zhang Jinfeng, director of the blade certification department of Beijing Certification center, said that blade certification mainly includes type certification and raw material certification. The type certification standard is mainly the GB25458, and the authentication mode is basically the design evaluation and type test. Raw material certification is mainly for resin, fiber, structural glue, new material, coating, etc. The full size structure test is mainly aimed at the blade, to carry out the natural frequency test, fatigue life test, etc. abide by the GB standard and international standard.