The right tools for wind farm performance

Monitoring is the foundation of wind farm performance work.

KPIs, diagnostics and monthly summaries provide structure and comparability across turbines and farms. They indicate where performance changes and where attention is required.

But not every performance question can be answered in the same way.

Some questions can be addressed with standard indicators. Others require controlled comparisons, detailed investigation of operational data or the ability to isolate specific operating conditions. Performance clarity depends not only on what is measured, but on having the right tools to interpret it.

Different questions, different analysis

Wind farm owners, operators and asset managers deal with different types of questions.

Some are broad and recurring: How is performance evolving? Where are the main energy losses? Which turbines deserve attention first?

Others are more specific: Did a parameter change alter turbine behaviour? Is an observed gap structural or temporary? Under which conditions is production being constrained? What exactly happened during a given event? These questions do not require the same analytical approach.

Monitoring and diagnostics are essential because they provide structure. But when a question becomes more specific, the tools must adapt accordingly. A monthly KPI does not answer an event-level question. A fixed diagnostic does not always explain an unusual operating pattern.

Fig. 1: ExpertWind Insights Lab enabling custom data-driven analysis. In this example, a controlled comparison confirms the change in yaw misalignment through the relative shift of yaw error versus wind farm reference behaviour.

The right tools turn questions into evidence

Performance work becomes more effective when each type of question can be addressed with the appropriate tool.

Some investigations focus on understanding how turbine behaviour evolves over time or around specific operating events. Others require comparing turbines or time periods under comparable conditions in order to test hypotheses directly on operational data. In other cases, the objective is to identify recurring operating patterns or constraints that would otherwise remain difficult to detect within large volumes of SCADA data.

These situations do not require more complexity for its own sake. They require analytical tools that match the nature of the question being asked.

When the right tool is available, observations can be tested, hypotheses can be verified and conclusions can be supported by operational evidence. This is what ultimately shortens the path from suspicion to understanding.

Fig. 2: ExpertWind Insights: Farm Replay allowing wind farm operation to be replayed for specific events in context. In this example, wake effects appear clearly through the power gap versus the farm reference.

How ExpertWind reinforces this approach

In our latest Insights release, we introduced several developments that reinforce this approach.

The new Insights Lab allows users to run their own structured analyses directly on operational data. Turbines can be compared under controlled conditions, relationships between signals can be tested, the effect of parameter changes can be assessed and behaviour can be examined across selected time periods. This provides the flexibility to investigate specific performance questions directly, without being limited to standard computations.

Farm Replay supports event-level investigation by allowing wind farm operation to be replayed for specific events, helping interpret transient behaviour and sudden performance changes. Curtailment Plans detection complements this by automatically identifying recurring power limitation rules based on external parameters such as time of day, wind speed, wind direction or temperature. This makes curtailment plans easier to detect and explain.

Fig. 3: ExpertWind Insights: Curtailment Plans automatically identifying recurring power curtailments. This example shows a sectored curtailment pattern with clearly detected wind direction, wind speed and time conditions.

These are only a few examples of how Insights is evolving to support more rigorous and more flexible wind farm performance analysis.

That is a central part of how we approach wind farm performance at ExpertWind. Monitoring remains essential, but understanding performance becomes much stronger when teams also have the tools required to investigate, compare and explain what they observe.

Wind farm performance is not only about tracking results. It is also about having the right tools to understand them.

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