Taking advantage once again of the infrastructure and real-world conditions offered by its research site, Nergica has conducted a comparative performance assessment of three rotor-mounted ice detectors. Subsequent to this conclusive study, Nergica published the results in a report entitled "Rotor-Mounted Ice Detectors - Performance Assessment". 

This document, available for purchase on Nergica's website, provides a detailed overview of the methodology used and the results obtained following the collection and analysis of data in an effort to accurately establish the performance of each of the assessed detection systems. It is accompanied by a white paper offered at no charge that presents and outlines the main findings of the study. 

Testing innovations for informed decision-making 

Every year, icing results in significant production losses for wind farms. In Canada alone, these losses can reach $113M annually. In recent years, in order to safeguard against the impacts of icing and provide a secure environment in the vicinity of the turbines, developers have been using ice detectors installed on the nacelles of their machines. 

"Although nacelle-mounted ice detectors are effective, studies have demonstrated that ice accretion can be quite different on the turbine blades as compared to atop the nacelle, hence the importance of having detectors that provide accurate data on the state of icing on the blades," explains Nergica's Dominic Bolduc, project manager for research and innovation. 

In this context, a number of companies have marketed rotor-mounted ice detectors over the past few years; however, no quantitative study of their performance had been carried out until now. "Rotor-mounted detectors are a recent development and, as no assessment of their performance had been carried out, it was difficult for industry players to select the most appropriate device," points out Mr. Bolduc. 

It is in this context that Nergica published a study that compares the performance of three ice detectors installed on the rotor of a Senvion 2 MW turbine operating at the former's research site in Rivière-au-Renard, Quebec, Canada. The study compares the performance of three rotor-mounted ice detectors, namely Weidmüller's BLADEcontrol, fos4X's Rotor Ice Control and Eologix. It evaluates their performance according to certain parameters including technical availability, total duration of icing measured throughout the period, severity and temporal accuracy. The assessment is based on reference data obtained through the analysis of i) images from two hub-mounted cameras and ii) the turbine's status codes. 

Although study results demonstrated adequate technical availability levels for each of the detectors, the report provides a wealth of precisions and a number of recommendations that will enable operators to make informed decisions with regard to the ice detectors best suited to their needs.

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