Health Monitoring of Wind Turbines Using Sensor-Only Measurements

Advancements in the wind turbine technology have led to a rapid expansion in the wind energy sector placing it as one of the crucial components of the global renewable energy sectors. Wind energy farms include onshore and offshore farms. While onshore farms are cost-effective and accessible, offshore farms benefit from higher and more consistent wind speeds, although they operate in harsher conditions that increase the risk of faults. Health monitoring of wind turbines is thus essential to ensure safe operation of onshore and offshore wind turbines and to prevent any failures that can cause damage to the system and the environment. In this paper, we introduce a health monitoring algorithm for wind turbines that does not require knowledge of a model of the wind turbine or the input acting on it (i.e. wind speed and direction). The proposed algorithm only requires measurements from sensors, which are available during the wind turbine operation.