Copel Geração e Transmissão concluded this month the implementation of the WindFor ™ software for forecasting wind generation. Using artificial intelligence, the tool will indicate up to 12 days in advance how much energy can be produced by the 264 wind turbines that add up to 590.5 MW of installed power in the four complexes that the company operates in Rio Grande do Norte. These accurate and anticipated forecasts will help in planning the operation to increase gains from this source and subsidize the scheduling of machine stops for maintenance in periods less favorable for electricity generation.

The novelty is part of a broader integrated management plan for the performance of the Company's wind generation assets. The project will absorb R $ 2.2 million in investments and foresees the adoption of three independent tools, but which will be used in an integrated manner. The first is software used in the assessment of wind flow for wind farm projects, in use at Copel since October 2019. The second refers to the recently concluded adoption of WindFor ™, implemented by the companies EMD Brasil and ENFOR.

And the third tool is an online platform for evaluating and managing the performance of wind turbines and wind farms in real time - which should start to be used for the Brisa Potiguar and São Bento complexes in October this year. The Cutia and Bento Miguel complexes will be contemplated in 2021.

According to the Director of Operation and Maintenance at Copel GeT, Thadeu Silva, the management of wind assets should be based on three main pillars: availability of wind turbines, availability of BoP (Balance of Plant - set of networks, lines and substations) and conversion rate of wind resource into electricity. "The technology acquired in this project will support Copel's analysis and will ensure that our assets can always operate at their optimum point. Our goal is to place our parks among the best in terms of capacity factor", says the director.

This entire system will collect data directly from the servers of the wind farms, which will be under constant monitoring, generating reports in real time. The change increases reliability and agility in decision making regarding the operation of the parks. “With that, we eliminated the manual and repetitive work of collecting and recording information in spreadsheets that take days to be analyzed and consolidated”, explains the manager of the contract for Copel, Juliana Pinheiro de Lima. "In addition, it will be possible to verify that the performance obtained by each of the wind turbines is in accordance with what was designed", he adds.