Estimation of fractal representation of wind speed fluctuation by artificial neural network with different training algorothms

Since the wind speed fluctuation could cause large instability in wind energy systems it is crucial to develop a method for precise estimation of the wind speed fluctuation. Fractal interpolation of the wind speed could be used to improve the accuracy of the estimation of the wind speed fluctuation. Based on the self-similarity feature, the fractal interpolation could be established from internal to external interval. In this article fractal interpolation was used to improve the wind speed fluctuation estimation by soft computing methods. Artificial neural network (ANN) with different training algorithms were used in order to estimate the wind speed fluctuation based on the fractal interpolationThis is the peer-reviewed version of the article: Petković, D., Nikolić, V., Mitić, V.V., Kocić, L., 2017. Estimation of fractal representation of wind speed fluctuation by artificial neural network with different training algorothms. Flow Measurement and Instrumentation 54, 172–176. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.flowmeasinst.2017.01.007

A genetic programming approach for estimating economic sentiment in the Baltic countries and the European Union

In this study, we introduce a sentiment construction method based on the evolution of survey-based indicators. We make use of genetic algorithms to evolve qualitative expectations in order to generate country-specific empirical economic sentiment indicators in the three Baltic republics and the European Union. First, for each country we search for the non-linear combination of firms' and households' expectations that minimises a fitness function. Second, we compute the frequency with which each survey expectation appears in the evolved indicators and examine the lag structure per variable selected by the algorithm. The industry survey indicator with the highest predictive performance are production expectations, while in the case of the consumer survey the distribution between variables is multi-modal. Third, we evaluate the out-of-sample predictive performance of the generated indicators, obtaining more accurate estimates of year-on-year GDP growth rates than with the scaled industrial and consumer confidence indicators. Finally, we use non-linear constrained optimisation to combine the evolved expectations of firms and consumers and generate aggregate expectations of of year-on-year GDP growth. We find that, in most cases, aggregate expectations outperform recursive autoregressive predictions of economic growth

Pitch Angle Misalignment Correction Based on Benchmarking and Laser Scanner Measurement in Wind Farms

In addition to human error, manufacturing tolerances for blades and hubs cause pitch angle misalignment in wind turbines. As a consequence, a significant number of turbines used by existing wind farms experience power production loss and a reduced turbine lifetime. Existing techniques, such as photometric technology and laser-based methods, have been used in the wind industry for on-field pitch measurements. However, in some cases, regular techniques have difficulty achieving good and accurate measurements of pitch angle settings, resulting in pitch angle errors that require cost-effective correction on wind farms. Here, the authors present a novel patented method based on laser scanner measurements. The authors applied this new method and achieved successful improvements in the Annual Energy Production of various wind farms. This technique is a benchmarking-based approach for pitch angle calibration. Two case studies are introduced to demonstrate the effectiveness of the pitch angle calibration method to yield Annual Energy Production increase.This work is funded by the Council of Gipuzkoa (Gipuzkoako Foru Aldundia, Basque Country, Spain) within the R&D subsidy for the project DIANEMOS on the identification of defective anemometers in wind turbines, and the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU, GIU 17/002)

Wind speed parameters sensitivity analysis based on fractals and neuro-fuzzy selection technique

Fluctuation of wind speed affects wind energy systems since the potential wind power is proportional the cube of wind speed. Hence precise prediction of wind speed is very important to improve the performances of the systems. Due to unstable behavior of the wind speed above different terrains, in this study fractal characteristics of the wind speed series were analyzed. According to the self-similarity characteristic and the scale invariance, the fractal extrapolate interpolation prediction can be performed by extending the fractal characteristic from internal interval to external interval. Afterward neuro-fuzzy technique was applied to the fractal data because of high nonlinearity of the data. The neuro-fuzzy approach was used to detect the most important variables which affect the wind speed according to the fractal dimensions. The main goal was to investigate the influence of terrain roughness length and different heights of the wind speed on the wind speed prediction

Maintenance Management of Wind Turbines

“Maintenance Management of Wind Turbines” considers the main concepts and the state-of-the-art, as well as advances and case studies on this topic. Maintenance is a critical variable in industry in order to reach competitiveness. It is the most important variable, together with operations, in the wind energy industry. Therefore, the correct management of corrective, predictive and preventive politics in any wind turbine is required. The content also considers original research works that focus on content that is complementary to other sub-disciplines, such as economics, finance, marketing, decision and risk analysis, engineering, etc., in the maintenance management of wind turbines. This book focuses on real case studies. These case studies concern topics such as failure detection and diagnosis, fault trees and subdisciplines (e.g., FMECA, FMEA, etc.) Most of them link these topics with financial, schedule, resources, downtimes, etc., in order to increase productivity, profitability, maintainability, reliability, safety, availability, and reduce costs and downtime, etc., in a wind turbine. Advances in mathematics, models, computational techniques, dynamic analysis, etc., are employed in analytics in maintenance management in this book. Finally, the book considers computational techniques, dynamic analysis, probabilistic methods, and mathematical optimization techniques that are expertly blended to support the analysis of multi-criteria decision-making problems with defined constraints and requirements