Renewable energy producers are facing today the decrease of their feed-in tariff while their LCoE (Levelized Cost of Energy) remains constant or even increase. For wind farms the operation and maintenance costs is a large part (up to 40%)1 of the LCoE. In this context, wind farm managers are strongly interested in optimizing their maintenance operations and minimizing their costs.
A significant part of maintenance costs can be imputed to corrective maintenance operations. This is due to the fact that many wind turbine failures occur suddenly, so that required spare parts and logistical means are not provisioned, or are detected too late, when wind turbine damages are really important. Also, for several failures, a correct diagnosis can be very difficult and requires a lot of time and very specific competences.Even little improvement in early failure detection or in failure prediction, or support in failure diagnosis can have a significant impact on cost control.