Rain Erosion Load and Its Effect on Leading-Edge Lifetime and Potential of Erosion-Safe Mode at Wind Turbines in the North Sea and Baltic Sea

Charlotte Bay Hasager, Flemming Vejen, Witold Robert Skrzypiński and Anna-Maria Tilg
Additional contact information
Charlotte Bay Hasager: Department of Wind Energy, Technical University of Denmark, Risø Campus, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
Flemming Vejen: Danish Meteorological Institute, Lyngbyvej 100, 2100 København Ø, Denmark
Witold Robert Skrzypiński: Department of Wind Energy, Technical University of Denmark, Risø Campus, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
Anna-Maria Tilg: Department of Wind Energy, Technical University of Denmark, Risø Campus, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-24

Abstract: Leading-edge erosion at wind turbine blades cause a loss in profit for wind farm owners, in particular offshore. The characterization of the rain erosion environmental load at wind turbine blades is based on the long-term rain rate and wind speed observations at 10-minute resolutions at coastal stations around the North Sea, Baltic Sea, and inland. It is assumed that an IEA Wind 15 MW turbine is installed at each station. The leading-edge lifetime is found to increase from the South to the North along the German and Danish North Sea coastline from 1.4 to 2.8 years. In the Danish and German Baltic Sea, the lifetime in the West is shorter (~2 years) than further East (~3 to 4 years). It is recommended to use a time series of 10 years or longer because shorter time series most likely will cause an overestimation of the lifetime. The loss in profit due to leading-edge erosion can potentially be reduced by ~70% using the erosion-safe mode, i.e., reduce the tip speed during heavy rain events, to reduce blade erosion, aerodynamic loss, repair costs, and downtime during repair. The aerodynamic loss for the 18 stations is on average 0.46% of the annual energy production.

Keywords: erosion; wind turbine blade; environment; rain; erosion-safe mode (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/7/1959/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/14/7/1959/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:14:y:2021:i:7:p:1959-:d:528834

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().