Presentations

Abstract

In wind farm operations, vast amounts of operational data are commonly available, but their full potential value is not realised because of obstacles in understanding and integration [1]. There is a tremendous opportunity to unlock that value through industry-wide adoption of common reference ontologies [2]. Such ontologies provide a common framework for describing data, including a shared meaning that is both human readable and machine readable, alongside the clarity of definitions required for automated logical reasoning. The explicit semantics of an ontology-driven approach enable interoperability and promote AI-readiness. As part of IEA Wind Task 43 [iea-wind.org/task43], we have formed a public working group in the WeDoWind ecosystem [community.wedowind.ch/spaces/20886575/page] to capitalise on this opportunity, which includes a diverse range of experts across multiple disciplines. Within this group, we have built a foundational ontology of operations, which we are expanding to include more detail. At the general level we define entities such as operational process, maintenance process, operator role, operational objective, operational state, operational environment and operational alarm message. We then extend it with an ontology covering specific entities in the wind energy operations and maintenance domain, including for example wind turbine blade inspection process and gearbox condition monitoring process. Our suite of ontologies for operations and operational data aim to provide a foundation to integrate all types of data in the domain of wind farm operations, including for example SCADA alarms and events, SCADA time series signals, CMS data, inspection reports, work orders, service reports, maintenance manuals and weather forecasts. The ontologies do not generally replace existing standards, such as the IEC 61400-25 coding systems for SCADA signals, but provide a more general and explicit framework for integrating them. We provide guidance on how the ontologies can be used by stakeholders in the industry and what benefits they bring.