With Farsight®, you can assess the day-to-day performance of your assets with the help of predefined variables and calculations behind them. These variables include Active Power, Irradiance, Wind Speed, Capacity, Reactive Power, Efficiency, Operation, Reactive Power, and others.

Following are the variables you can see on a wind farm portfolio:

The maximum energy that can be produced by a wind farm is dependent on the wind speed. Since the speed of the wind is variable, the Capacity Factor is a measure of the ratio of the actual energy produced over a period to the theoretical maximum energy that could have been produced.

If a 3 MW turbine produces 7884 MWh in a year (8760 hours):

Reactive Power is the power used to create and maintain magnetic fields in the wind farms. It is managed by the inverters to ensure the voltage stays within the required limits of the power grid. It is provided by the source.

It is the ratio of Real Power (the power that does work) to Apparent Power (the total power flowing through the circuit). It is retrieved through the source to our platform. It can only be between 0 and 1 (or 0% to 100%). The higher the number, the better the performance of a wind farm is considered.

Apparent Power is the total power flowing through the system, which is provided by the source to our system.

The large enclosure atop the tower that houses the gearbox, generator, and controller is called Nacelle. Nacelle Position refers to the compass position of the Nacelle. The Yaw is measured from 0° to 360° (where 0° is North).

The Yaw Deviation module in Farsight makes use of this calculation as well. If the wind is coming from 180° (South) but the Nacelle Position is 170°, you have a 10° Yaw Error. This causes a drop in efficiency and puts uneven stress on the blades. The higher the misalignment, the higher the energy loss.

Time-based availability checks for the time of operation, and availability time. It also considers the time wind farm was unavailable due to unavailability of grid connection, device unavailability and data monitoring halting events.

Where (In terms of Enercon):

For a 30-day month (720 total hours), we analyze a single Enercon’s performance:

The Capacity Factor for a solar plant measures the ratio of the energy produced over a period (e.g., a month) compared to the theoretical maximum if the panels operated at their Peak Rated Power 24/7.

For a 5 MWp (Megawatt-peak) solar farm producing 900 MWh over a 30-day month (720 hours):

Reactive Power is the power used to create and maintain magnetic fields by the inverters. It is used to ensure the voltage stays within the required limits of the power grid. It is provided by the source.

Efficiency measures how well the panels convert the sunlight hitting their surface into electricity.

A single panel has a surface area of 2 m². On a clear day, the sun provides 1,000 W/m of energy. The panel outputs 440 W.

Solar Irradiance or Irradiance measures the instantaneous power of the sun hitting the panels, typically expressed in Watts per square meter (W/m²). It is provided by the source in realtime.

This is a health metric that tells you the percentage of time your inverter was physically capable of working, regardless of whether the sun was shining or not.

Where:

T not available: hours of failures occurred during the selected period (Faults and Maintenance events);

T available: hours during which the device is operational

For a 30-day month (720 total hours), an inverter had a small cooling fan failure and a scheduled inspection: