Wind Turbine Reliability Analysis Considering Operating Environment

The operating environment of wind turbine generators (WTG) is varying and severe. The WTG average failure rate is used as wind turbine generator failure rate in the traditional reliability assessment. However, the failure rate of WTG is affected greatly by the varying operating environment. In this paper, according to the different characteristics of WTG subsystem, the WTG is divided into three parts: power-electronic system, mechanical system, and control system. And a kind of WTG reliability analysis method which considers the influence of wind speed and temperature for the three parts is proposed. According to the historical foundation of wind farm, the case studies of the 2MW permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG) failure in the different wind speed and temperature are analyzed. Research results show that the quantitative relationship between wind speed, temperature and the WTG failure rate could be got by means of the proposed method. And the proposed WTG reliability analysis method is more accurate to some extent.