Polytech
SENACT® ICE - Proven savings on operating wind park
SENACT® Ice detection system outperforms conventional power curve or anemometer-based systems significantly in terms of reliability and functionality. Using SENACT® Ice, one of our customers reduced their turbines’ downtime loss by 884,000 MWh, gaining more than €70,000 within a week across 26 turbines.
Ice Monitoring
SENACT® Ice is a DNV-certified, rotor blade-based ice monitoring system using fiber optics technology. The system accurately detects the amount of ice directly on each blade.
The detected ice mass either triggers the de-icing system implemented in the turbine and/or trigger the automatic stop/restart function. With this function, the turbine can restart automatically. No need to wait for visual inspection or an additional time-safety period causing unnecessary downtime.
Benefits of SENACT® Ice
- Certified system. The system is fully certified according to DNV-SE-0439:2021-10.
- Prevent ice-related problems and avoid unnecessary shutdowns. The DNV certified system monitors ice build-up on the blades and thereby prevents unnecessary downtime while securing both performance and safety.
- Save maintenance and operational costs. Designed for wind turbines, the system is lightning-protected, rugged, and built to last over 20 years. As such, manual inspections can be minimized while energy production gets maximized.
- Enjoy easy and flexible use. SENACT® Ice can be installed in the factory or retrofitted on the installed blade. The system features a fully automatic calibration system, AFP. The AFP takes care of ensuring the system is always measuring correctly even when the blade stiffness and vibration response changes over time.
- Robust, ruggedized, and maintenance-free solutions that withstand even the most extreme operating conditions, lowering maintenance costs.
- Fiber optic technology to eliminate lightning damages.
AFP - Autonomous Fingerprinting for Ice Monitoring
Fingerprinting is a process that creates a model of the eigen frequencies of the blades on a wind turbine rotor. The model helps to predict how the blades behave under different conditions, such as temperature, pitch angle, and rotor speed. Fingerprinting is essential for ice monitoring, as it allows the system to measure the change in eigen frequencies due to ice accumulation on the blades.
With our ice monitoring system, you get Autonomous Fingerprinting that enables your wind turbines to automatically create and update their own fingerprint models without the need for manual intervention or external data sources. The system uses advanced algorithms and vibration sensors to measure the eigen frequencies of the blades and adapt the models to changes in conditions.
Benefits of AFP
- Improved accuracy and reliability of ice monitoring, as the system can distinguish between ice and normal operation factors that affect the natural frequencies of the blades.
- Improved efficiency and performance of the wind turbine, as the system can optimize the turbine availability and reduce the fatigue and damage caused by ice.
- Improved autonomy and convenience, as the system can create and update the fingerprint automatically without requiring manual intervention or remote access.
