OREANDA-NEWS. Today, GE’s (NYSE: GE) renewable energy business announced the expansion of its brilliant wind platform to include plant-level wind management software applications to improve overall wind farm output. Using the power of the Industrial Internet and turbine-to-turbine communications capabilities, GE’s new software allows the turbines within a wind farm to act as a cohesive unit, rather than individual assets. Wind plant wake management, from GE Predictivity™, is the first farm-level management application launched by GE and enables customers to recapture lost power output from waking effects.

When capturing wind, turbines create a wake that impacts the volume and condition of the wind reaching turbines sited behind. With the wind farm wake management application, turbines balance performance and loads throughout the entire wind farm. In turn, wind farms can achieve greater power output as an overall plant, and customers can expect to see 5-10 percent reduced wake losses and improved mechanical loads due to lower wake turbulence. This translates to up to 8 percent more profit for the wind plant.

“In the past, wind plants have operated as a series of single autonomous units. With wind plant management, turbines can operate as part of an interconnected, cohesive team, as opposed to competing with one another for the best wind,” said Anne McEntee, president and CEO of GE’s renewable energy business. “Now, what used to be a series of 1-2 megawatt machines can operate more efficiently as a full-scale multi-megawatt power plant.”