Fault analysis of wind turbines in China

The installed capacity of wind turbines in China increased rapidly in the past 10 years. Against the backdrop of growing wind turbine capacity, the failure of wind turbines is becoming increasingly serious. Based on the three primary configurations and failure statistics analysis of wind turbines in China, this paper summarizes the failures of wind turbine components, such as frequency converters, generators, gearboxes, pitch systems, yaw systems, blades, braking systems and sub-synchronous machines. Although there are many failure types and various causes, we can deduce four primary reasons for these failures: lack of core technologies; inferior quality due to price competition; design standards and wind farm climate differences; and no mandatory quality certification and exterior factors, such as wind farm construction, power grids and maintenance. Finally, while aiming to improve the reliability, a reliability management method. with regard to the design, manufacturing and maintenance of wind turbines was proposed. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.