Asset Management and the monitoring of assets and planners

“Good morning, this is Anik.”
“Hi Anik, we’d like to check in for Windpark Oostzeedijk.”
“Thanks for letting me know. What will you be doing today? Are you here for maintenance or a repair?”
“We’re here for maintenance; this is the first day of five.”
“Great, that matches the work permit I see. I’ll check you in for today. What are your names? Best of luck today!”

Our Asset Manager, Anik Damajanti, takes calls from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. from technicians checking in and out for work on windturbines. Currently, Green Trust manages over 100 wind turbines. To monitor these effectively, we have seven skilled Asset Managers at Green Trust. Anik talks about her role as a technical administrative assistant: “I support our team with administrative tasks so they have more space for analysis and solving the daily challenges in our projects. I love being able to help my team and make their work easier. Then again, that’s pretty easy in Green Trust’s best team,” Anik says with a wink.

Anik ensures that work requests are checked and that rules are followed. She does this by approving or rejecting check-ins and recording any special notes. “When something happens without being recorded, we’ll have a problem later,” Anik explains. For windpark monitoring, she uses three key programs: Sweep, Windy, and Powerfactors.

Monitoring work permits
“Sweep is the program where we receive work requests. Here, I check all work permits and agreements, and I assess the urgency of planned work. If there are malfunctions, they need to be resolved as quickly as possible so the turbines can operate at full capacity again. For work requests, I can see in Sweep which technicians are on site and what they are doing. If a technician checks in without a work permit, I contact the planner to find out what’s going on,” Anik explains. “We make sure that the people working in the windturbines have received the right training and instructions, and in cases of special work, this is checked by a safety expert.”

Informing off-takers
When a work permit is approved, Anik informs the off-taker. “We also do this if a turbine has a malfunction for an extended time. This way, we reduce the imbalance. An important part is ensuring that the work permit schedule is translated into the right information for the off-taker.” Based on the technicians’ schedules and the type of work, Anik ensures that the off-taker receives the correct availability planning.

Negotiating
Windy is a wind map that shows weather forecasts. Anik explains: “We use it to see if work can be done safely and to ensure that maintenance happens on days with lower energy production.” The advantage of Windy is that you can view multiple forecast models at once, allowing for better predictions. It’s important for wind parks to generate as much output as possible, so we regularly discuss and negotiate with the technicians’ planners. They want to schedule their teams when there’s enough staff, but that doesn’t always match the weather. Luckily, we have good relationships with the planners, and our asset managers are skilled at finding the best solutions. Sometimes, you have to give a little to get something in return.”

Monitoring windturbines
With Powerfactors, we monitor the windturbines. Sometimes, a turbine produces no or less power. “If this happens, we check if we’re aware of the reason and what caused it. If it’s a malfunction, we check if we’ve already received a work request. If not, we contact the planner to schedule someone to resolve the issue,” Anik explains. “When technicians are working, the turbines are stopped. At check-out, we ask the technicians what they did to solve the issue and if there are any remaining tasks. This information helps asset managers identify trends in wind turbine performance and ensure that issues are resolved promptly. Additionally, we check if the turbines are running properly again and log this information.”

At the end of the day, the phone rings almost every ten minutes:
Hi Anik, we’re back. How are things? We’d like to check out for today. The weather looks bad tomorrow, so we probably won’t work.”
“Thanks for the update. I see you still have a few days on the work permit, so I’ll check you out for today and pause the permit. It will be active again once you check in. Are there any other details I should note?”
“No, nothing else. Thank you, Anik!”